Leeds Carnegie Kids eat Currie for Sunday Lunch

Ryan's return
By Zan
November 15 2011

So, here we are with another break in the season so we can play in a pointless cup game, please RFU, bring back a good old traditional knock-out Cup contest that all can enjoy! In this case, however, with our ever mounting injury list, maybe this particular game has come at exactly the right time....

Currie, who sit fourth in the Scottish Premier 1 League and have a current one match winning run, came to Headingley to play in their first B&I Cup Game of the current campaign and may be approaching it slightly differently to us. This week they enlisted the help of ex-Scotland coach Frank Hadden, who lives on the same side of Edinburgh as Curries’ Malleny Park ground. Hadden took a training session on Tuesday. Currie were well represented at Headingley with plenty of supporters making the trip down.

Leeds Carnegie’s Superkids, on the other hand, have now won five on the bounce and although it has not been pretty, they seem to have found that ‘never-say-die’ attitude that we all longed for last year. This was another opportunity to give some of our fringe players a run out, including another game for Tinkerbell, so good to see him back in Carnegie colours.

So, on a dismal, dreary Remembrance Sunday afternoon we settled down to see how the Kids would fare against Currie. After two minutes, we had our first casualty Dicky Beck, who left the field with blood pouring out of his nose, to be replaced by Jacob Rowan.

After, 5 mins there was another casualty, this time in the guise of the seat next to me when it was broken by a huge kick sent up from the Currie fullback, hopefully Mr Hetherington will have some funds to fix it!

After 7 mins, Leeds got the breakthrough in the form of a try from young fullback, Christian Georgiou after good work from Ryan Burrows. Nippy young lad is Christian. Joe Ford missed the conversion so 5 – 0 to Leeds. There was then a spate of penalties, of which Currie scored both theirs and we missed ours, so after 17 mins Currie were leading 6 -5.

Unlike the beginning of the season when the Leeds’ pack were being thrown around like rag dolls, we now have a pack to be proud of and yet again they were superior to their opposition. There was some good play from Leeds but we are still suffering from those little errors that come at the end of some very good build up phases.

On 20 mins, Dicky Beck who had come back on was obviously suffering with his broken nose so was replaced by Chris Walker. We then had a lengthy break whilst the Currie right wing, Barry Mansfield, was treated on the pitch before being stretchered off. We all hope he is ok.

When play resumed, Leeds again piled on the pressure and it was only some good work by the Currie fullback that prevented some of Joe Ford’s bombs paying off for Leeds, his out of hand kicking is one aspect of his game that is flourishing at the moment.

After 35 mins, Scott Freer scored. Yet again there had been some good Leeds’ play, but we tried to be a bit too flashy in the backs and lost it. Thankfully, our wonderful forwards won the ball back and Scott managed to sneak in for a try. Joe converted his opportunity and Leeds found themselves 12 – 6 up and that is how it remained at half-time.

I must admit that the abuse of Terry by the North Stand regulars was appalling, poor Mutt was only trying to pull four young ladies sat just in front of us! It’s amazing what you can get away with dressed as a Yorkshire Terrier and I am sure if Haxbytyke and Woody-Tyke had tried what Terry was doing they would have both been locked up in Bridewell and been the subject of a Crimewatch documentary hosted by Ester Rantzen!!

Anyway, the second half kicked off, but I missed the first few mins as I had gone for a coffee in the Carnegie Cafe, it’s 20p cheaper in there than the Sports’ Bar!

On 50 mins Currie pulled the score back to 12 – 9 with a successful penalty. On 52 minutes Diccon started to make changes, Sam Lockwood came off for Gareth Denman and Robbie Shaw came on for Craig Hampson.

Although Leeds had been told in the first half not to waste time at lineouts, more ‘fannying around’ resulted in the ref, who didn’t have a bad game, penalising us. Again, it’s the basics boys!

Jacob Rowan then came on for Dominic Barrow and shortly after Dan Hemmingway scored a try. Unfortunately Joe couldn’t capitalise and the score stayed 17 – 9.

On comes Plug, replacing Chris Walker and goes to the back row (our hero), and Oli Dents and Dave Young replace The Beast and Tinkerbell.

On 65 mins, Robbie Shaw who had been very lively since coming on, used his initiative (thanks Haxbytyke) and got over the try line. Joe converts and it’s 24 – 9 to Leeds.

After more good work by our pack, Gareth Denman gets over for another converted try, 31 – 9.

Then it happened again. A Currie player was allowed to run through the middle of our team whilst they all stood there admiring his footwork and forgetting that ‘tackling thing’ they were taught as kids. Although he was stopped, it wasn’t long before the Currie 13, Douglas Pike, took advantage of their territorial gain and scored a converted try, 31 – 16. And that is how it remained until the final whistle.

Not a great spectacle witnessed by the 925, (which I obviously would have guessed if there had been a competition), brave souls, but another confidence boosting win. Yes the same errors are still there, handling, passing and TACKLING, but this was a very young team and they are coming on leaps and bounds, especially the young forwards. Scott Freer got Man of the Match, very well deserved, Alex Reider playing at No 8 today is a monster, really hope we get to see more of him. Also, Chris Walker is rapidly becoming the new Shrek with some of his yardage gains.

We can now go into our next game at Esher on the back of six wins on the bounce and Marching On Together!!

Zandra LaPoI

Leeds Carnegie Kids eat Currie for Sunday Lunch

Posted by: TykesRugby.co.uk (IP Logged)

Date: 15/11/2011 06:20

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:11:17:21:21:14 by Wildwillie.