Leigh make Anselmians fight hard for their promotion.

Leigh entertained promotion-chasing Anselmians yesterday, at Hand Lane and made them fight hard, for the victory they needed to get them into the League play-off against Aspatria, next week.

The Wirral side took an early lead with a penalty, on nine minutes but a Rob Drake penalty for Leigh, a minute later, soon levelled up the scores.

Anselmians retook the lead, with another penalty on twenty minutes but Leigh soon regained the ascendancy, in the twenty fifth minute, when a chip through by Ollie Shepherd was intentionally palmed dead by an Anselmians defender, with Ollie highly likely to have touched down. This resulted in Leigh being awarded a penalty try to take them into a ten points to six lead.

Anselmians ramped up the pressure and were rewarded for their efforts with a converted try, under the Leigh sticks, in the thirty eighth minute but again Leigh rallied and hit back at them, with a cracking try, through Rob Drake, which he converted, to take the sides off at half time with Leigh leading by seventeen points to thirteen.

Anselmians came out in the second half in a more determined and clinical mood with their big forward pack soon asserting it’s dominance. Their domination of the second half produced three tries, two conversions and a penalty, to put them into a thirty five point to seventeen lead, with two minutes to go.

Leigh were not going to lie down, however, and their persistence paid off when a good break by Marcus Morris-Williams was finished off by Ollie Shepherd, who rounded the Anselmians defence, to scoot under the sticks for an excellent try, which was again converted by Rob Drake, in the last play of the match.

Final score Leigh 24 Anselmians 35.

Another excellent display of open rugby, by both sides, to round off the season. Our very best wishes go to Anselmians, we sincerely hope that they win their play-off next week.

A massive thank you to all of the Leigh players and support staff for their efforts and commitment this season, it has turned out to be quite a successful year with several young players gaining a lot of experience along the way.

We are not quite sure in which League we will be competing next year, at the moment, due to the present restructuring that is taking place but I’m sure that wherever we end up, this ever improving squad will be a force to be reckoned with.