Leek pay penalty as they suffer defeat at Camp Hill

LEEK Rugby Club’s first team travelled to Camp Hill RUFC based in Solihull last Saturday in what turned out to be a game of two halves.

Camp Hill had been relegated last season and it was clear from the supporters in attendance and the lovely clear skies that this was going to be a tough game for the travelling Leek team.

The forwards set up as in the first two games of the season with the addition of Lee Williams starting at flanker and the addition of Will Graham in the back line and playing on the wing with the unavailability of James Floyd.

The players on the bench included another colt, Billy Kidd.

From the kick-off Leek’s forwards pressed hard on the Camp Hill 15-metres area, but were unable to turn the pressure into any points and on 10 mins, from a Camp Hill lineout they were able to spray the ball along the back line to score in the corner to take a 5-0 lead with a missed conversion.

Leek made an immediate reply with Jack Newton Taylor having an impact at all Leek kick-offs through the afternoon. The ball was passed to Bobby Cheadle with a patient forward build up and control they went through several phases with the ball passed to Joe Newton Taylor to crash over from five metres. The conversion was scored by Sam Hunt , who kicked well all afternoon to take a 5-7 lead.

The game then became one of open play from both sides with Leek defending very well against a far bigger home side and some well executed box kicks by Leek scrum half , Ollie Drew.

On 25 minutes Camp Hill won a penalty in front of the posts and secured the points to take the lead.

Again from the kick-off the ball was won by Leek and through controlled forwards play the ball was passed along the back line with a great pass from Will Graham to Tom Scragg who went over to score in the corner.

The difficult conversion was well taken by Sam Hunt to take a 8-14 lead.

Leek continued to play some very good rugby against a strong Camp Hill side and on 38 minutes the home side lost the ball in midfield which Leek chased well and centre Nick Palmer won the chase to touch the ball down with an easy conversion for Hunt to give Leek a 8-21 lead at halftime

The break seemed to allow the home side to take a breather as Leek had taken the upper hand.

However they came out the stronger team in the second half with Leek starting to lose a couple of scrums against the head which had been their strong point in the first half. Camp Hill quickly got some points on the board from a penalty and then after 10 minutes prop Joe Newtontalkor was yellow carded, which gave player advantage to the home side and through that period they went on to to take the lead through a try, conversion and penalty as there man and weight advantage started to tell.

With 15 minutes to go, Ollie Drew was replaced by Dan Needham at scrum-half and Liam Mcdermott returned to fly-half with position changes for the back line.

Leek continued to press the home line with Sam Hunt hitting the posts from a penalty on the half-way line, unfortunately the ball bounced to the favour of Camp Hill which they were then able to clear.

In the last few minutes the returning Mcdermott was tackled very late which was missed by the official which looks like it will be another long road to recovery for the player who went off injured.

The game finished 23-21 against two teams who played with two different styles of play.

Captain Luke Hardern said after the game: “We played some excellent rugby in parts against a strong Camp Hill side. We just need to keep the penalty count down and work on some of our final execution, we were very unlucky not to come away with the win.”

This weekend at Esterchem park is the club’s beer festival with a vets game under floodlights on Friday with ko at 7.30pm and the first team playing at home to Crewe and Nantwich on Saturday with a 3pm ko, with bar open at 1pm, followed by live music.

The beer festival will have 10 different beers with local sponsor support.