Aldridge held by St Leonards

A well worked try into the corner by Nick Yates after just 5 minutes appeared to have given us the start we needed to go on to carve out a comfortable victory. But this wasn’t to be though - we had better possession and territory in the first half but were well below par in converting this into points. Any momentum we did develop was halted by handling errors and silly penalties allowing the home side time to re-group and gather their own momentum. The 5-point lead stood until 10 minutes before half time when a spell of forward pressure resulted in St Leonard’s prop Dave Plant charging over close to the posts. No10 Martin Brazier added the extras. This gave us a bit of a wake-up call as at last we began developing the impetus to threaten the home side’s line. Tries from lock Eddie O’Neill, close to the posts, and a second from Nick Yates - both converted by full-back Alex Yates gave us a comfortable looking 7 – 19 lead at the interval and when scrum-half Adam Reed crossed shortly after the restart it looked game, set and match. The home side had different ideas though – there was a game to be won and they set about executing it. We meanwhile had switched off and by the time we realised we had a game on our hands, the home side were making inroads into the deficit. Two tries from No 8 Gareth Jones – the second converted by full-back Carl Butler - put them firmly in the driving seat whilst we were losing composure and discipline as we struggled to get back into the game. Right at the end the home side’s persistence eventually paid off when No10 Aaron Rogers crossed mid way out to level the scores. The kick was missed. Big sighs of relief from us. Big sighs of what might have been from St Leonard’s.

Jim Chambers