Leek Start New Year with Win

Bishops Castle 0 Leek 22

Leek's 1xv Rugby league fixtures started again last Saturday after a long break for holidays and bad weather. Having not played since Dec 12th Leek knew that this game in Shropshire was always going to be difficult. The Castle team is always much stronger when they play at home and Leek's team contained several changes with 5 first choice players being unavailable.
Team
Fowler,Laverick,Wilson,Green,Buxton,McDermott,Kennaway,Milner,Futcher,Ackerley,Newby,McFadden,Staton,Edge,Nettel subs Cooper,Humphreys,Palmer

Colt Elliott Fowler played full back and made several great counter attacks and defended well. He was the last line of a fantastic defensive effort from the whole of the Leek team. Castle beseiged Leek's line for 10 minutes at the end of each half and came away with nothing-no score at all for all their driving forward play and against 14 men in the first half. Leek coach Ian Gittings praised the team for its spirit and tackling which never failed and which blunted every Castle attack

Leek were always in control of the match and with half-backs Gary McDermott and Dave Kennaway organising both attack and defence it was not long before Leek scored. Luke Staton was ill and replaced by Dan Cooper after 5 minutes and soon after the forwards won a lineout and McDermott passed to Andy Green who made a great break and set up a terrific try for his centre partner James Wilson

Leek were well in control of this early part of the game and McDermott kicked a penalty after Fowler was tripped to go 0-8 after only 10 minutes. Within minutes one of Leek's counter attacks by Fowler saw him pass on to see wing Lucas Buxton after the forwards had won several good rucks. He sped away for a converted try and Leek were leading 0-15

Leek missed 2 penalties as they ran the ball at Castle and caused them to infringe to stop Leek attacking. Soon on 22 minutes a tremendous combined attack from forwards and backs saw Wilson's scissors pass dropped on the line by prop Jason Milner which would have given Leek a deserved score and a cushion of more points. Milner was involved in several other driving runs and this would have been a reward for working hard off the ball and supporting the backs all through the game.Leek's forwards wee determined to drive at Castle and Newby led many of Leek's driving runs

Leek were then put under pressure as Castle worked their way into Leek territory and attacked for over 10 minutes near the line. After many penalties lineouts mauls and scrums Leek held on even when Green was yellow carded for playing the ball in a ruck but the rest of the Leek team tackled superbly as the home team camped on Leek's line until half-time and did not score. With the score 0-15 Leek were pleased to see hear the whistle but disappointed that some of their great team work in attack had not yielded a few more points. However the tackling and scrummaging was excellent and denied Castle points to narrow the difference on the score line

The second half was much like the first but Leek were only able to score another converted try as Wilson finished off a great sequence of play which moved left and then right from several rucks.McDermott converted and continued to control the game when passing running or kicking. Leek were constantly trying to run the ball on a heavy sticky pitch-linking together and were playing some good rugby in attack but found it difficult to break through and score

Both teams were now tiring and attacking as much as possible so the game was end to end stuff but no breaks to score
The last minutes of the game saw Leek defending with great discipline and Castle were unable to get over the Leek line at all
So the final score saw Leek well in control and winning deservedly 0-22 against a competent and strong Bishops Castle team

Next week
Leek 1xv at home v Bloxwich 2.15 ko
Leek Dev/colts xv --game tba
leek 3xv at home v Longton 3xvm 2.15 ko