Leos 3s come 2nd, Leos 0 – Bramley 49.

Leos 3s took on Bramley on the heavy, muddy big pitch at home. Bramley were more up for the battle from the off. They were first to most breakdowns and in truth only about 7 of the Leos team were making tackles, at least to start with. The Bramley 9 made break after break scoring a couple of solo tries during the game. The oppo 10 also ran the game very cleverly, spinning quick flat passes out to his burly 13 who never tried to bust through, he simply put younger faster boys into gaps to great effect.

In short order Leos had conceded 3 tries in the first 20 mins. Up front the wheel began to turn a little as we all realised if we did not start upping our effort levels we would be on the end of an awful thrashing. As the first half drew to a close we were at least competing with some oppo scrums being won by Leos shoving Bramley off the ball. Jason returning from a bad knee injury tried his best in the unfamiliar 9 shirt with Tim Jesus outside him at 10. Tim had a funny day with his cultured boot, for touch he belted some wonderful long range kicks and made good ground. From the numerous restarts after Leos had ceded tries he struggled gain any elevation off the boggy pitch. He persevered refusing to let anyone else have a go, fair enough, and was eventually cheered to the skies, perhaps a little ironically, when he connected with a restart properly.

Tom Clapham was tackling and carrying well, and turnover king Neil was at it again pilfering ball he had no right to win.
As the half ended Cadgey calmly explained where we were going wrong, calling for composure and playing to the outlined game plan , not going off like headless chickens. Your scribe called for passion, effort , desire and intensity. No surprises there !
The second half was a much better effort from Leos. Enthusiastically cheered on by resting members of our 1s, Titanium Terminator fingers, the proper scribe Scotty, plus Jim “ Retired to play golf and wear pink shirts, when not skiing“ Gribbon, Leos rose to the challenge a little better.

Dan the Mann came on and put himself about making several good tackles as his rugby education continues well. Tim Jesus made a couple of breaks, Farmer Jim had clearly had some smelling salts at the break, as he took off like a mad march hare a few times gaining good yardage. Captain Cadgey even got in on the act, rumbling oppo boys out of the way with glee and relish written in big letters on his face ! Jason got cross at 9, took a quick tap and went for the Bramely 10 with ball in hand, he made some progress and it was great to have him back.

Hopefully next week he may be able play 10, Tim Jesus is away, and Jamie Young should be back at 9. An exhausted Lovers went off for a rest on 50 ish mins. Bramley started to get grumpy as they were now in a contest, if never in danger of actually losing !
Leos tried rolling mauls, pick and goes and worked very very hard to try and avoid a nilling at home. Despite all this effort Bramley defended well and kept a clean sheet. They also continued to score several breakaway tries as the game entered the last 15 mins. A refreshed scribe returned to bosh with a tiny bit more oopph, bouncing off one notable no arm tackle, which drew a stern word from the superb ref for the Bramley lad in question. Cadgey carried on urging his troops on but as the final whistle went the truth was we had had a bit of a stuffing really.

Still without the extra effort shown in the second half it could have been a far higher scoreline !
Man of the match was Tom Clapham for all his hard work in making tackles, destructive srummaging and ball carrying when he got the chance.

We retired to drink warm beer provided by Farmer Jim ! and then enjoy some cold beer in the bar.
It was noted that only at Leos would the complimentary shower products be of course partly Molten and Brown !