Anselmians knock plucky Leigh for six

Errors and poor defence in first half cost Leigh dearly

Leigh travelled to the quaint and picturesque Eastham Village on the Wirral yesterday to play Anselmians, on what turned out to be a lovely day for fast, open rugby.

The Leigh squad was rearranged, yet again, due to the unavailability of two of Leigh’s big ball carriers, Chris Boyle and Calvin Crompton, in the forwards, with Paul Trumble coming back from retirement and Chris Mayren, coming into the squad, to replace them and Elliott Ryan returning, on the bench, after a lengthy layoff, due to a shoulder injury. It was good to see all three of them back in contention.

Anselmians were quick out of the blocks and shocked Leigh with a converted try, in the first two minutes, when they exploited a mismatch down the left flank to scorch over for a well worked finish.

Leigh, however, were very quick to respond and an excellent break by Rob Drake put Kieran Duffy over for a well taken, unconverted try by the right hand corner flag.

Anselmians augmented their lead, on twenty minutes, with a converted try down the right and then, ten minutes later, a speculative kick through, which seemed to cause confusion and indecision in the Leigh defence, ended up with a very fortunate bounce landing in their centre’s hands, for him to dot the ball down for their third converted try of the match. 21 – 5.

A bonus point, for scoring four tries, was secured by Anselmians in the thirty fifth minute with another well taken score down their left flank, which was again brilliantly converted from wide out on the touchline.

Half time Anselmians 28 Leigh 5.

Leigh came out a rejuvenated side in the second half and soon narrowed the deficit when Rob Drake hit a lovely line to collect a pass from Marcus Morris-Williams to score under the crossbar for a well worked try, which he also converted.

Leigh continued to threaten for most of the second half but could just not add that killer punch to get them through the well-marshalled Anselmians defence.

Anselmians took advantage of a stretched Leigh team in the last ten minutes and went over for two more converted tries to take them off as worthy victors, notching up six converted tries.

Final score Anselmians 42 Leigh 12.

No match next week but the week after, Saturday 25th November, Leigh entertain Southport K.O. 2.15 p.m. at Hand Lane.