Match Reports about Leigh Centurions since 1998

Browse through our pages and read the match reports on Leigh penned by Dave.

Thursday 7 January 2010

1999 Season Reports: February: BARROW RAIDERS 16 LEIGH CENTURIONS 33: Challenge Cup

BARROW 16

LEIGH CENTURIONS 33
By Dave Parkinson.

Leigh completed a comfortable 33-16 away victory over the Raiders in the Challenge Cup, setting up an interesting fifth round encounter with crestfallen cup kings Widnes in the process.

The Centurions opened the scoring in the second minute when Patel fired a wide pass to Liku who dived over.

Leigh's dominance in the first quarter was shown with a brace of tries from winger Dave Ingram. His first came from a scrum and a well timed pass from Stuart Donlan.

Ingram's second was more spectacular, juggling with a line ball before accelerating over 25 metres and jinking inside the full back.

Phil Kendrick converted for a 16-0 lead and the Centurions were in command.

Barrow came back into the game with the likes of prop Chris Whiteley and halfback Darren Holt working hard. But, all too often the Raiders struggled to break away from their one man drives, which played right into the Centurions hands.

Just before halftime, the Raiders were fortunate when an attempted kick was charged down. Phil Atkinson swooped and fed Tane Manihera a pass for the former Widnes player to score beneath the posts. Holt added the conversion and Barrow trailed 16-6 at the break.

The Raiders made a good start to the second half and were rewarded when Phil Atkinson popped up from a scrum for an unconverted score.

Barrow looked increasingly confident at this point, but Leigh were not keen to surrender this game and stormed back with the try of the day. It was Alan Hadcroft that blazed over following a 60 metre, three pass movement.
Phil Kendrick again converted and added a drop-goal that stretched Leigh's lead to 23-10.

That point badly affected Barrow and their challenge faded when Stuart Donlan was awarded a try after dribbling a loose pass over the line despite loud protests from the home fans.

Andy Fairclough completed Leigh's scoring with another 30 metre solo run while Ingram was denied a hat-trick following a double movement.

To their credit, the Raiders stuck to their task with impressive substitute Paul McMillan well to the fore. Their persistance was rewarded with a consolation score from fullback Stuart Magorian in the last minute and Darren Holt completed the afternoon's scoring with an excellent conversion from the touchline.

Scorers:

Barrow:
(T) Manihera, Atkinson, Magorian
(G) Holt (2 from 3)

Leigh:
(T) Liku, Ingram (2), Hadcroft, Donlan, Fairclough
(G) Kendrick (4 from 6) + 1FG

Game stars
Leigh: Dave Whittle no.10 and Anthony Murray no.7
Barrow: Stuart Rhodes no.11 and Phil Atkinson no.3

Attendance: 1485.

No comments:

Post a Comment