NEWLY promoted Leigh East inflicted Blackpool Scorpions first defeat of the season. Both sides were well disciplined in defence and open and adventurous in offence, but unfortunately Scorpions were stung by a late Leigh East show.

The first score of the game came on the half hour mark when Ben Simpson caught a high ball on his own line and ran through the entire Leigh East defence to score a converted try under the posts.

A couple of minutes later Andrew Johnston scooted 20 metres from dummy half to notch a well-deserved try and extend Scorpions' lead to 10-0. Defensive errors just before half time allowed Leigh East in for an unconverted try to close the half 10-4 in Scorpions favour.

Newly-appointed captain, and man of the match, Steve Woodburn took on the Leigh East defence from the kick-off. He broke a tackle and off-loaded to supporting Gareth Chadwick who raced 40 metres before passing inside to Shaun Towell who just failed to cross the line. At the resulting play-the-ball, Chadwick passed to Luke Valente who strolled over the line. Chris Pearson converted for a 16-4 score to Scorpions. Leigh East started to apply more pressure in attack, squandering opportunities before scoring twice in the space of five minutes. Dave Tanner then brushed off a number of tacklers to score his first drop goal of the season to make it 17-14 to Scorpions.

Faced with four Leigh attackers, Simon Pritchard single-handedly managed to stop Leigh from scoring. But, with two minutes left, the Scorpions defence failed to mark at the play-the-ball for Leigh's loose forward to scramble over.

The final whistle went with Leigh East winning 18-17.