Soap Slump Continues

“Every Credit to Stanningley, they were clinical today but we were very very sloppy and careless with the ball. We need to have a good week in training and get back up for the game on Saturday at home which can't come fast enough!” Interim Head Coach Ian Boden

Crosfields ambitions at the start of the season were to at least make this year's playoffs, if not win the whole competition. It will be a tall order to even stay in the division if current form continues.

Stanningley, from Leeds have shown some recent good form following a mixed start to the season and they were first out of the blocks as Crosfields started slowly yet again. Winger Ben Selby taking the lead on 7 minutes with a well worked try.

Soap hit back almost immediately though as Matty Barber, playing in the second row ran a great line to crash over on 10 minutes and draw the game level at 4 all with both conversions missed.

That was as good as it got for the home team however as a purple patch of exciting rugby from the vistors aided by poor completion and errors from Crosfields saw Stanningley run in 4 unanswered tries to take a commanding hold of the fixture. Ben Selby completed a 1st half hatrick interspersed by a brace from his centre partner, Dean Parker to show the dominance Stanningley employed on the left side of the pitch. Niall Murphy bagged three conversions to make the half time score 4-26 and pretty much kill the game as a contest.

Again, to their credit Crosfields showed some fighting spirit and started the stronger of the two sides in the second half. Matt Lomax and Tom Millington registering tries in the opening 5 minutes of the half to provide some hope - all three of the Soap tries were not converted, so pegging the visitors lead was going to be a harder task than usual.

The game became more of an arm wrestle for the next 15 minutes before Stanningley finally quashed the home team's hopes with a devastating spell, scoring three more tries in 4 minutes to totally take the game away at 42-12 with tries from Steve Welton, Jack Smith and Adam Benn with 17 minutes to play. Two were converted by Niall Murphy.

In the final 10 minutes Tom Brown and Nathan Taylor crossed with one conversion by Brad Stanway to put a little more gloss on a thoroughly disappointing performance that will need to rapidly improve if Crosfields want to stay in the division. Hayden James continues to impress and picked up his 4th man of the match in 5 games . Final score 22-42

Next week there is another home tie as Leigh East buoyed from their weekend scalp of Askam come to the Webb Security Rec - kick off 2:30pm

Updated 00:25 - 31 Aug 2019 by Paul Arnison