Gritty Beverley mark Ladies Day with win over West Leeds
BEVERLEY RUFC marked their annual Ladies Day with a 27-5 victory over West Leeds.
The hosts took the lead within the first minute when Luke Hazell spotted a gap and raced towards the West Leeds 22 with Rob Smith and Alex Calvert in support.
He flipped the ball inside for Calvert to surge over for 5-0 to the Beavers.
West Leeds’ forward pack began to get a hold of the ball and set up the backs to score with what looked like a knock on to bring the scores level at 5-5.
Within five minutes the visitors had what looked like a perfectly good try ruled out for what was deemed to be a tiny knock on.
The next score was the home side’s with a sweeping move off the back of a scrum in their own half.
Smith again found Hazell arcing wide who engineered a two-on-one to give Jake Boardman a chance to race around the full back and score from 40 metres out.
By this point Beverley were beginning to struggle to retain possession, with an increasing number and variety of penalties being awarded against them.
However, their defence was exceptional, led by Sam Bayes Josh Dillon, Dan Lee and Danny Morris.
The referee, though, was becoming frustrated with the number of infringements Beverley were committing and decided enough was enough and yellow-carded Andy Meagher and Gav Jenney in the space of five minutes.
West Leeds camped on the Beverley line with several scrums against the Beavers’ depleted pack. Just when a sharp blindside move looked to have paid off with the line beckoning in stepped Smith to intercept and race the length of the pitch to make the score 15-5 to the home side at half-time.
The second half initially became a bit of an arm wrestle with both sides struggling to show the cohesiveness of the first period.
Beverley couldn’t escape from being on the wrong side of the referee and penalties continued to mount with two further yellow cards, again reducing them to 13 men.
Again, West Leeds couldn’t make this numerical advantage count, despite playing some good structured rugby and camping in Beverley’s half.
The last quarter saw Beverley shake off their lethargy and, led by Max Bayes’ crisp service and Lewis Szrama and Jack Houseman’s industry, they got their hands on the ball. Following a series of forwards drives, and at last some repeat phases, the ball was swung across the pitch to allow Boardman to dart around his opposite number to extend Beverley’s lead to 22-5.
The home team rounded off the match with a speculative long pass turned into a try by Sam Peers and Jack Adamson with Jacob Baggs rounding off another good personal performance with a deserved score.