I say inconsistent, yet KXP’s first half performances so far this season have been consistently poor and they’ve relied on their fitness borne from an intense pre-season’s fitness regime down at Halifax Boxing Club, to drag themselves back into games but today, gifting East Leeds with a 22 point head start, left KXP with little opportunity to win the game and at half-time, the travelling faithful saw the second half as ‘damage limitation’ time.

Similarly to previous games, the first half was littered with handling errors, poor decision making and a distinct lack of composure. There were too many players challenging for the ‘top tickler’ award and there was an air of ‘here we go again’, with the KXP boys offering little in the way of both effort and enthusiasm.

The half time whistle couldn’t have come soon enough and in the words of D:Ream, ‘things could only get better’……and to be fair they did.

KXP needed an early try to stand any chance of dragging themselves back into the game and they did in the form of Ted Grogan. He proved unstoppable once he’d gathered momentum and crashed over the line to score KXP’s first try of the game. A successful conversion by Noah Smerdon reduced the gap to 22-6. Game on!!

KXP were now taking the game to East Leeds. They were playing with more aggression and standing toe to toe with their opposition. Mackenzie Fielden, arguably KXP’s player of the season so far, was causing East Leeds problems with his strong running and the rest of the KXP team responded to his ‘never say die’ attitude.

East Leeds were clearly rattled and so was the referee, appearing out of his depth on more than one occasion. He tried to bring a bit of order to the game when sin-binning an East Leeds player for persistent high tackling but had failed to penalise them earlier for three shoulder barges in quick succession and had seemingly turned a blind eye to them kicking the ball away all too often in an attempt to waste time. That said, KXP debutant Jasper Taylor, could have found himself taking an unwanted 10 minute breather had the referee chosen to penalise him for his unorthodox form of tackling, more akin to that seen on WWE. Waddy can coach that out of him and he’s sure to be a great addition to the black and yellow jersey. Welcome!!

KXP continued to press and with 5 minutes remaining, Tyler Brocklehurst touched down and reduced the gap further still to 22-10. Was there enough time for one more try? There certainly was but it was East Leeds who were to benefit from more indecisive tackling, scoring in at the corner and running out deserved winners, 26-10.

Opposition Man of the Match: Tyler Brocklehurst
Coaches Award : Mackenzie Fielden
Parents Man of the Match: Ted Grogan

Match Report by Graham Smerdon