10th October 2015 – Spartans v Leamington
In recent years, the trip to Spartans has become a bit of a nightmare for Leamington, in that they always seem to pick up injuries to key personnel. Today saw influential No8, Craig Smith depart with a rib injury and with him, one of the squads main ball carriers.
Spartans were fast out of the blocks and set about some quick fire attacks in the Leamington 22 metre area. This initial onslaught was brought to an abrupt end by the intervention of a Simon Harry, bone crunching tackle.
Leamington then returned fire with a mesmeric run from winger, Jamie Harrison. Then Craig Smith and Danny Phillips exchanged passes and nearly got Harrison away again and it was clear that the wingers pace could be a problem for the home side.
The Coleshill outfit have a solid pack and when Leamington allowed them too much time to get up a head of steam, they took full advantage with a pushover try.
The hosts almost scored again from the restart; however a dropped pass, one of many unforced errors of the afternoon, allowed Leamington to clear their lines. Spartans continued to put Leamington under immense pressure but robust defending and some poor handling restricted them to just one further penalty goal.
As the half drew to a close, Leamington produced some of their trademark vision, with a superb score. With play focused in midfield, Craig Smith crashed through the Spartans pack, claimed possession and sent out a pass to Ross Waterhouse. The Leamington Centre had Alex Carroll and Nathan Earland in support and these two combined to get the ball into the hands of the fleet footed Harrison. As the defence closed in, Harrison chipped the ball ahead, gave chase and won the race to get the touchdown. Earland was just off target with the difficult conversion attempt.
The hosts must have been disappointed at this stage that all their pressure had only won them a three point lead.
Half Time: 8 – 5
The second period proved to be a somewhat different affair, as injury issues and an inability to cope with the power of the home pack, saw Leamington ship four tries.
It was the pace in the Spartans attack that caught Leamington out and they used this very effectively to punish the visitors defence.
The fixture was always going to be a test for the “Moorefields Men”, however there were some very positive individual displays, in particular Marcus Pask, who had been introduced early into the game and who fought throughout to get his side on the front foot with some bulldozing runs. Also, until injury forced him off the park, Craig Smith was his usual dominant force around the park, tidying up in defence and always in the key areas in attack.
Full Time: 34 – 5
Next week Leamington have a league free weekend and return to duty on the 24th October when they host Malvern, kick-off 3.00pm.