With a changed starting line-up including hooker Pete Atkinson making his seasonal debut, captain Andy Ellis in the pack and Dan Greenslade returning to the bench Phoenix started brightly, applying early pressure to the Leos line. A penalty was kicked to the corner, however strong defence saw the ball held up over the line. The home team were not to be denied though, and following pressure from the resulting 5m scrum, a maul was driven over the line. The only surprise was to see lock Ross Owen emerge with the ball for his first try in Phoenix colours. Storey set the tone for the day, making a tough touchline conversion look simple to tag on the extras.

Leos came straight back at Phoenix, and spent the next 5 minutes camped in the home team’s 22. Phoenix though stood strong to repel the pressure, but lost their influential Number 8 Ryan Peacey to a calf injury ten minutes into the match. Some reorganisation saw Oli Clarke move up to the back row from centre, with the returning Greenslade taking his place.

The next period of the game was a battle of attrition, before Leos conceded a penalty just inside their own half which Storey converted to extend the home sides lead to 10 – 0.

Leos were next to strike, as their inside centre – who was a constant threat – made a break in the Phoenix 22, before off-loading to his centre partner to go over under the posts for a converted try. Phoenix then returned the favour, as a series of 5m scrums were reset, before the ball was worked out for full-back Craig Deakin to go over from a well-worked backs move for another converted try. As was the theme of the half though, Leos struck back almost immediately – poor Phoenix defence from a scrum allowed the visitors scrum-half to scoot through a gap and dot down under the posts for another converted try.

Home fly-half Dan Storey was to have the last say in the half though, as another long range penalty was kicked to leave the half time score at 20-14.

The second half begun in similar fashion to the first, with Phoenix again applying the early pressure, thanks to some clever territorial kicks from the boot of Storey. Another penalty conceded just inside the Leos half extended the Doncaster side’s lead to 23-14. The visitors however were to have the best of the next ten minutes, following the sin-binning of Greenslade for an alleged trip. They capitalised on the numerical advantage with a further converted try to narrow the gap to 23-21.

Once restored to their full compliment, Phoenix made most of the running for the remainder of the game, and extended their lead with a Storey drop-goal, despite prop Dan Morris’ best efforts to relieve pressure on the visitors with a slow tap penalty.

Leos did have some late pressure, with a 5m lineout and scrum, however Phoenix defended stoically to turn the ball over and relieve the danger.

Fittingly, it was the boot of Dan Storey that was to have the last say in the game as his late penalty put Phoenix out of reach of the visitors to leave the final score at 29-21.