Weekend RU Teams

2nd XV: Pool at home, meet at 1pm.

3rd XV: Bolton away, meet at 1pm.

Tofts: Crewe & Nantwich away, meet at 12.45pm.

Vets: Preston Grasshoppers at home, meet at 1.30pm.

Leigh 1st XV 10 Widnes 9

Leigh hang on to topple leaders

LEIGH RU first XV produced a tremendous defensive effort to clinch a narrow 10-9 victory over league leaders Widnes.

Widnes missed an early penalty chance when Leigh were hesitant in clearing a loose ball, but Leigh began to exert forward pressure and constantly had the Widnes pack on the retreat.

Two Widnes players were sin-binned in quick succession for stamping and punching respectively and Leigh took advantage of their absence to drive the Widnes pack backwards for 20 metres to claim a touchdown from the rolling maul.

Leigh continued to pressurise the Widnes pack and stole a ball from the Widnes scrummage which was moved swiftly wide for Irwin to cross in the corner, both conversions being unsuccessful, but giving Leigh a deserved 10-0 lead.

Widnes began to peg Leigh back with some long, raking kicks and a failure to clear a dangerous situation presented them with a successful penalty opportunity, followed shortly afterwards with a similar event, which saw them close the gap to 10-6. Leigh were then subjected to intense pressure but defended well to hold out to half-time.

The second half became a stalemate, with both sides having chances. Widnes began to run the ball with their pacy backs, while Leigh seemed reluctant to open out and play their normal game, preferring to keep the ball tight. Some silly mistakes crept into their play and Widnes took advantage to reduce the lead with another successful penalty.

In the final quarter, Widnes pressed hard for a score but Leigh defended stoutly and hung on for a narrow but deserved victory.

The whole pack deserved credit for a stirring performance and sponsors Widows Mason adjudged scrum-half Peacock Man of the Match.

Bury 10 Leigh 3rd XV 5

Welcoming back a few players, Leigh travelled to Bury expecting to get their league campaign back on track.

The first half was dominated by Leigh's attacking play. The forwards secured the ball for the backs to carve through the Bury defence. On numerous occasions Leigh failed to turn good possession into points which would eventually cost them the game.

Leigh opened the scoring when a poor defensive kick from the Bury winger sliced infield for Krause to collect. He drifted wide and popped a pass to Erskine to crash over in the corner for an unconverted try.

Late in the half Bury should have scored themselves if it wasn't for the superb last-ditch tackling from fullback Schroeder. On two occasions he successfully halted the centre short of the line.

The second half proved scrappy with Bury making best use of the loose ball. Leigh's lack of discipline allowed Bury to convert a penalty bringing the score to 3-5 giving the home side a glimmer of hope.

Leigh never really looked like scoring in the second half even though they had good spells of attacking rugby within the opponents half. The final humiliation was complete in the last few minutes of the match when an attempted clearance within Leigh's own try area was charged down allowing Bury to steal an undeserved win.

Leigh Tofts 31 Caldy 22

The Tofts opened their account for 2004 with a hard earned victory over the visitors from the Wirral. Despite going two tries down in the first quarter, the Leigh side always looked dangerous. They were tackling fiercely and disrupting the Caldy pattern of play.

Fryer opened the Leigh scoring after a strong run from Yates. Soon after the interval Yates added a second and the game was in the balance. The Tofts tough tackling saw three of the visitors leave the field and Leigh were ready to seize the advantage as replacements came on.

Fryer burst through the middle to notch up a second try. Lawrinson capped an immense personal performance with a surging run from the back row to add another. McKeever ran in the try of the game after excellent work from Dickinson on the wing, to put the game out of reach.

A late consolation try was all Caldy could muster after a lapse in concentration on the Leigh wing. Man of the Match was Lawrinson with both the Green brothers and Grimshaw also having big games in the Leigh pack. A welcome return for Graham Coates added to the Leigh celebrations.

Leigh U16s 7 Tarlton 21

On a day more in keeping with flying kites than playing rugby, Leigh u16s made the journey to Tarlton. The opposition chose to play against the wind in the first half and opened the scoring after five minutes. Leigh took this as a wake up call and with a good forward combination of Grundy,Clamp, Reynolds, Carroll and Baker the ball was driven up field. A quick switch along the line through Leake, Pirrie and Crehan allowed Lowe to break two tackles and touch down under the posts. Clamp converted to make the score 7-7.

After the half time break Leigh were forced back by Tarlton as they used the wind to their best advantage with both Peter and Nick Bailey put under pressure on the wings. Stuart Pirrie covered all the loose ball at the back and ran the play back to Tarlton.

Morgan and Lees tackled everything that Tarlton threw at them but poor discipline in the Leigh backs saw the referee use both his cards as they were reduced to 13 men for 10 minutes.

The game finished three tries to one against Leigh but the game was closer than the result suggests.

Training is at the clubhouse down Beech Walk, Pennington at 7pm, every Tuesday.

Leigh U14s 30 Wilmslow U14s 12

Leigh couldn't have wished for a better start to the 2004 when Ben Davis opened the scoring with a fine try in the first minute of this game.

Wilmslow showed that they were not going to be beaten easily though and came back at Leigh in a well contested match. The visitors put Leigh on the back foot and scored a deserved try to level the scores. Leigh's confidence was up though and approaching half-time they scored two further tries from Ben Davis and Jordan Davis to give themselves a 15- 5 lead at the interval.

Wilmslow pressured Leigh at the start of the second half but the home defence held firm and slowly Leigh advanced up the pitch enabling Boyle to score. They stretched their lead further when Stafford scored in the corner and although Wilmslow scored a converted try it was left to Man of the Match Ben Davis to complete his hat-trick.