Leigh Show Signs Of Real Quality in Bonus Point Defeat.

Leigh’s first game, back in South Lancs/Cheshire One, saw them make the short trip down the Lancs to Liverpool St Helens. With a new look side, containing several debutants, playing together, competitively, for the first time, you might have expected a cautious start but Leigh flew out of the blocks fast and a charge down by debutant, Westwell, led to a good field position for Leigh. Their lively back line made good use of the turnover to see Wilkinson shoot over in the corner. 5-0. LSH though have a chunky and belligerent pack and they hit back quickly with a catch and drive off the lineout to crash through for a converted try. 5-7. After 10 minutes of good front foot ball, the ball was worked out wide for Ollie Shepherd to get outside of his man and dot down for a 10-7 lead. LSH had the better of the remainder of the half as their forwards gained the upper hand in the tight exchanges. Two tries through their forwards gave LSH the lead at half time 17-10.

After the break LSH came out of the blocks and Leigh didn’t. Two quick tries were the result as Leigh went through a poor period of defensive organisation and started to fall off tackles. Leigh did recover from this and re-grouped, gaining better field position through quicker ball and improved dominance at the breakdown which resulted in a number of penalties and a yellow card for LSH. Capitalising on the extra man and with better ball for scrum half, Harrison, to play with, Leigh ran in 2 tries. Firstly, through good support play from Burdon and then excellent decision making putting McCabe through a huge defensive hole to bring the score to 29-20, after 60 Minutes. The midfield combination, of Leadbetter and the Drake brothers, was starting to pull the strings again and Leigh were unlucky not to reduce the deficit further, as a final ball from youngster Wood went to ground. LSH are clearly a very experienced side and they quickly recovered and further forward dominance saw two more tries. 39-20. Leigh had the final word with a try by Jonny Drake to cap a strong, first league outing. Final score 39-27.

All in all, Leigh can be pleased with their performance, an electric performance, at times, in the backs, a solid forward display against a much bigger unit and youngsters Wood, Greenwood and Westwell proved that they are more than capable of playing at this level.

Next week, Leigh entertain Sefton, who narrowly beat Broughton Park 24 - 22 in their season's opener.