Leos Under 8s District Festival at Wetherby

Well done to all the players and parents who made the trip out to Wetherby on Sunday.

Beautiful sunshine with driving winds made every match a 'game of two halfs' with the occasional gust threatening to blow some of our lighter runners backwards as well as spontaneously dislodging tags!

Leos, like the weather, started brightly against a well drilled Wetherby side narrowly winning 6:5 before taking on West Park to record our second victory in the group stage.

That left Moortown! Due to a sudden influx of players, their team had swelled to a squad of 15 or more which saw them fielding a different team for each half! Leos won the toss and faced with the 'smaller squad' in the first half tactically chose to play in to the wind. This tactic reaped dividends with a 3 tries to 1 lead at half time (including a contentious try that looked like it had come up short but there was immense confusion because the corner flag had blown away and the ref had the final say and gave the try!!). The second half was hard fought with Leos doing well to keep their noses ahead and, with the 'bigger boys' from Moortown trying their hardest, the final whistle came as blessed relief to notch up a 3:2 victory that put us in to the finals.

Wetherby A team and Sandal were the other 2 teams competing in the round robin finals. In reffing the Wetherby vs Sandal game I came across my first ever linesman's flag for foul play following an off the ball incident where a punch was thrown!! Thankfully, I missed it all as I was running (well walking quickly!) back to half way for the restart!

Leos competed admirably but were unfortunately beaten by 2 very strong sides with Sandal remaining unbeaten and lifting the trophy.

Once again thank you to all who made the trip - it is immensely rewarding and satisfying when the players and parents come up to you after the morning and thank you for your efforts. It is just a shame that Jason couldn't have been there at the end, having had to dash off to a wedding, as his was the lion's share of the coaching effort!

Chris

p.s. Apologies for the inelegant Photoshopping of Henry on to the team picture...as part of the team I felt he shouldn't be left out! I only wish I could use Photoshop a bit better! If anyone has photos of the day then please email them to me and I will add them to the online album!