Leeds quality shines through.
Leeds fan
By WW
March 2 2014
London Scottish came to Headingley today needing another win against Leeds to maintain their credentials as play off contenders. They capitalised on a slow start from Leeds and were in contention for over an hour but, in the end, the quality of the Leeds play proved too much and the Exiles left empty handed.
The visitors started well and Love kicked them into an early lead. Leeds had not really seen the ball before a well worked move from a ball thrown to the front of the line exposed a huge gap in our defence and we were suddenly 0-8 down. Time to start worrying? Possibly but we eventually got our running game going and started competing. With the next score increasing in importance we got a break when Robbie Shaw was binned. Lozowski kicked the three and on our next attacked Hampson made a searing break with Rowan crossing out wide. Lozowski added the extras and the scoreboard read 10-8. Game on!
Love kicked the visitors back in front before Lozowski crashed over and converted his try to make it 17-11 at halftime. For forty minutes the Exiles had enjoyed parity up front and their tackling was solid. I felt, however that their big pack were tiring and that we would get a lot more possession and hence points in the second half. Wrong!. LS came out , presumably fired up by the halftime peptalk and camped in our 22. A series of scrums/penalties followed and we all expected the ref to award a penalty try. Wrong again! We got the penalty and cleared our lines for a brief respite. The visitors came back for a second try and again, at 20-18 the next score was vital.
Before the game I commented on the fact that our bench looked very strong. Imiolek , Clarke and Bentley came on and the backs reshuffled. Pressure on the Scottish line ended when Bentley darted through for what proved to be the last try of the day. Lozowski rounded off a great shift by adding the extras and we felt that we had done enough for the win. When the rest of the bench came on the visitors looked spent and the final result, 27-18 was a fair reflection of the game.
Craig Hampson got MoM but for me the player who oozed quality and confidence everytime he touched the ball was Jonah Holmes. My pick of the forwards was Matt Smith, solid in the lineout and always in the thick of it , carrying the ball or making his share of the tackles. Next week we have a long trip to Jersey where, I am confident, we will continue our winning run.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:03:20:18:06:11 by Wildwillie .
Jimmy Lowes - WYS Audioboo
Mike Friday - London Scottish Audioboo
Geech - London Scottish Audioboo
Ever since Andrew Small sent us down by sending off Juan Gomez, I've hated watching the tactic of boring away at scrums hoping that the ref is going to pull a yellow card. Gamage kept blowing his whistle but kept his cards in his pocket. I don't think he knew who was responsible and let the time-wasting continue. By the time substitutions had been made I thought we clearly had the upper hand in the arm-wrestle. Mike Friday is delusional if he thinks that his team could have won with a bit more ref support. One things for sure no one really wants to pay to watch 18 men standing around threatening to have a pushing contest. Austin Healey makes a good point when he says that lumbering superweights shouldn't be given the chance to take a long rest before every scrum which leaves them with enough puff to then take up a defensive position in midfield. If Friday seriously thinks LS lost because Leeds were cheating, I seriously hope we don't have to watch them again.
Clearly doesn't know the off-side law, Scottish backs were off-side most of the game. He accepted the deliberate and cynical time wasting by the Scottish No:1, (who should have been carded on several occasions for illegal play) and his so called handling of the scrums was dreadful, particularly the ten minutes spent in the south west corner in the second half.
Had we had a ref who was interested in good, well played rugby, this game could have been so different!
However, a win is a win, despite the lack of a bonus point and the lads did well.
Up the Carnegie TYKES !
In footballing terms that was a genuine '6 pointer' and it was vital that we came out on the right side of it.
Well done lads.
Interviewer with McGeechan is just embarrassing. How many times does he try and lead him into saying good things about LS?
I was expecting a more thorough examination than in the past few weeks and we got one. Convincing enough in the end on the scoreboard but not particularly comfortable. I reckon had they scored from the hack through after the drop from Lozowski and gone two scores in front it could well have gone the other way. Still a pivotal win and now makes it very difficult for LS to catch us.