Moortown intercept victory as Leo’s throw it away

With the pitch in part resembling the bogs of the Stygian marshlands Leo’s battled bravely once again but succumbed to a slightly better back line, and yet another assortment of mishap and misfortune.
3rd teamers Niall and Tom were welcomed to the fold, along with the returning Kenroy as Leo’s looked to halt their dramatic run of defeats at local rivals Moortown. The opponents lined up with a mix of experience and coltish youth for an epic encounter in the marshy glade. True to form Leo’s conceded a try from the kick off as a soft turnover and lax tackling allowed the home side through without much effort. Spurred on by the aberration the pack took control of the encounter and bossed their hosts for the remainder of the game. The scrums spent the whole afternoon driving forward, attempting to resist the Moortown spinning defence as Si, Thommo and Josh bossed the front row, driven on by the steam engine room of Scotty and Batman. The back row was immense with Dog at the forefront with his conversion from prop to 8 almost complete. The pick and drives, clearing out and Scotty marshalled rolling mauls kept the home side on the back foot all afternoon in an attritional conflict of forward ecstasy
Behind this veritable behemoth the backs tried hard to make the telling openings against a well organised and strong tackling defence. Young Jake scurried and scampered to keep the ball alive and the backs moving but there was a degree of adventurous misfortune that gave Moortown 2 more tries via interceptions as Leo’s tried everything to work the openings. With Billy injured Gav filled in at fullback in a back three that featured yet another new to Leo’s rugby player in Roger Mackay. Spirit never wavered as once again the forwards created enough space for the backs to engineer a try out wide for Bella Italia’s newest recruit!
Despite being 21-5 down at the break the heads never went down and the second half proceeded with the Leo’s pack in complete ascendancy as they stuck to the game-plan once again. Dog, Winters, Thommo and Si all made the hard yards and when the ball was grudgingly released for the backs Niall and the crew tried their damndest to make the possession and territory count. Moortown managed to score their fourth try before the Leo’s pack took control again and in the final ten minutes retained possession for an indescribable number of phases before the mighty 8 drove Dog over three times, with only the third being awarded by the excellent referee.
Leo’s deserved the try, Moortown made some childish comments, Scotty lined up the extras, the last kick of the game, and one of the gracious home team shouted “Miss It!” as he kicked. Scotty called them unsporting c*#ts while Gav excelled himself with a finger wagging speech about how they should be ashamed of themselves!
Once again the forwards stumbled off exhausted but satisfied with their bossing of the pack war whilst the backs just like a soupcon of game breaking flare to go with their endeavour and courage in order to turn this season around