Carnegie takes regimental honours
By Haxbytyke
November 25 2012
Leeds Carnegie put one hand firmly on the Yorkshire Regiment Trophy, as well as moving, (even if temporarily), into third place in the Championship, with a hard fought victory at a gloomy Clifton Park. The second half was played with incessant rain coming down and a heavy mist descending onto the ground, and in all honesty, much of the play had a good resemblance to the weather.
Leeds kicked off, and within the opening ten minutes, Joe Ford had converted 2 penalties to Garry Laws single success, but shortly after Leeds scored the first try of the game. Good pressure from the forwards pulled the Roth defence across the field, leaving a huge overlap on the right wing, and despite two poor passes, Ollie Goss sneaked in at the corner after ‘sir’ had concurred with his assistant.
Then Rotherham applied some decent pressure, but the Leeds defence, at close quarters, was up to the task. Law did strike another penalty, only for Ford to restore the advantage shortly after, and it looked as if the teams would go for their half time pep talk with the visitors leading 14 points to 6. However deep into stoppage time, the Roth scrum half went walkabout at a scrum on halfway, giving away a penalty which Joe sent to touch. When play came infield,Leeds won a scrum, and Ryan Burrows picked up at the base, brushed aside a weak tackle to cross beneath the posts against his former club. An easy conversion gave Leeds a healthy half time lead, and not for the first time this season, the fans were expectant of another bonus point victory.
However the second half, fittingly given the trophy they are competing for, became a battle. The rain certainly didn’t help, and at times it was as if the game was being played two seasons ago. Scrums were reset on numerous occasions, some aimless end to end kicking, dropped passes, and some poor tackling. Three times Leeds were awarded a penalty at a scrum on the Roth line, even though they never looked like pushing the home pack backwards, and with no penalty try, or card looking imminent, Joe Ford grabbed the ball and took three points.
For some reason this woke the Titans and they now ventured into Leeds half, but when they did look to build any momentum, a pass went to ground and the chance was gone. Leeds had to defend hard now, but they did, and the only other score came with 8 minutes remaining, when a high cross-field kick was well collected by Eamonn Sheridan close to the Leeds line, and he evaded a weak tackle to cross wide out. Law did add the extras, but the only other incident of note, came, when Leeds once again had a player sent to the sin bin after conceding a number of penalties, Ollie Goss falling foul of the referee.
A final score of Rotherham 13 Leeds 24 was a reward for Leeds’ first half performance, and second half defensive effort, but their midfield tackling was weak, and I can’t help think, that hadRotherhamhandled the ball better in the second half, the result would have been much closer. The Leeds player’s celebrated wildly at the final whistle, this victory at a notoriously difficult ground to win on, meaning a lot to them.
Leedsplay was at times disjointed, and first half injuries to Beck and Hemingway didn’t help. In the loose, the forwards did well, but after the first 15 minutes they were second best in the set piece. In addition to that, there were times on attack, when they kept the ball tight, when they should have let the backs have the ball to run at the defence.
A special mention to Phil Nilsen, who once again threw impeccably at the line out, (it functions much better, Diccon, when ‘Plug’ plays), and did a tremendous amount of work around the park, but my bottle of pop this week goes to Roth old boy Ryan Burrows, who, apart from his try, ran and tackled hard all afternoon.
So the winning run continues, and next week sees another tough task when Bedford Blues come to our Otley ‘home’. However, there is a lot of spirit in this Leeds team, as one of them said to me after the game,’ we would have lost this fixture last year, that’s how we have improved’. Let us hope we can continue next week. See you there.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:12:02:18:34:18 by Wildwillie .
Completely agree with your unofficial man of the match award and also agree with the player you spoke to.
Great result
Agree we would have lost that game last year - we "might" even have lost it at the beginning of this season.
Good performance in horrible conditions - winning ugly works for me
Well done Leeds.
For me the turning point was the try immediately before half-time that gave us a lead we could confidently defend.
It was pleasing to see that virtually every time we ventured into the Roth 22 we came away with points - probably the difference between the two sides.
I wasn't born in Yorkshire but I got here as soon as I could
Life is what you make of it - you only get 1 so enjoy it
This was a good Leeds performance in bad conditions that didn't lend themselves to running rugby (particularly in the second half). Leeds got a lead and maintained it. That's not something they've been able to do before.
Could it be that this team is coming of age?
Suffering on the Leeds and Yorkshire roller-coaster since 2001
We need to play for the full match, not most of it.
Life is what you make of it - you only get 1 so enjoy it
