After a period of 12 months without facing Newcastle RUFC the Leopards were looking forward to what they knew would be a tough game and they were not disappointed! Newcastle had good numbers and Leek with 10 players away for half term had a similar number and two teams were fielded by each club.
The two sides were very evenly balanced and all games were nip and tuck affairs. There was very little in the scores for each game and although Leek took the overall result it could easily have gone Newcastle's way. Newcastle's organisation in defence was stronger in several games which gives us areas to work on but Leeks offloading kept the Leopards moving forward and kept the score ticking at a good rate.
Newcastle are a well coached team which we had learned from previous encounters in both friendly games and competition and Sunday was no different. It was great to see so many kids from North Staffs at a single fixture and a great standard of Mini's rugby. We look forward to the return fixture at Newcastle.