Match Reports about Leigh Centurions since 1998

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Wednesday 6 January 2010

2006 Season Reports: LEIGH CENTURIONS 60 YORK CITY KNIGHTS 16

LEIGH CENTURIONS 60
YORK CITY KNIGHTS 16
Dave Parkinson at the Coliseum.

Leigh Centurions finally secured third place in the final National League One table thanks to a 12-try win over already relegated York City Knights. The Knights have recently been subject of a renaissance, but that came crashing down in the first minute when second-row forward Dave Buckley was red-carded for flattening Aaron Heremaia after a kick.

“He [Buckley] was going to put some kick-pressure on Heremaia and followed through with his body.” Explained York coach Mick Cook.

“You are not allowed to jump off the floor and face the kicker – rightfully by the rulebook it’s a sending off, which was probably deserved really. If you break the law you pay the price!”

“I’ll have to watch the video. It looked probably worse than it was.”

Thankfully, after being checked over by the Leigh medical staff Heremaia was okay to continue. It then seemed somehow ironic that the halfback opened the scoring after 6 minutes from a scrum move.

Leigh continued their good early form with a second try after ten minutes when Scott Grix refused to let the ball die. The excellent Paul Rowley broke and Danny Halliwell scored despite best efforts of a covering Peter Fox. Two minutes later, another crisp handling move saw Paul Prescott held up over the line and the Knights were thankful of an interception by Jason Golden three minutes after that.

A rare attack in the Leigh half saw York go close but Austin Buchanan was well held by Adam Hughes. Then on 17 minutes, Leigh extended their lead when Grix kicked ahead. He followed up and when Lee Lingard fell over in-goal, Grix scored a bizarre try.

Leigh were simply irresistible with ball in hand and scored three more tries before the half-hour. First, skipper Rowley put Ricky Bibey in at the side of the posts, then when Leigh worked the ball to the right from Prescott’s offload, Halliwell chipped inside and Forber followed up to touch down. Having missed with his first three kicks at goal, Forber converted both of those and was on target again after 29 minutes when Lee Greenwood swept on a dropped ball from Fox to race 80 metres.

York, served well by Scott Rhodes, forced Hughes to backtrack and they fashioned another scoring chance when Mark Blanchard and Joe Helme put Lee Mapals in a hole but the fullback knocked on.

With seconds of the first half remaining, York were awarded consecutive penalties. As the hooter sounded in the background, Rhodes launched a speculative kick to the corner. Mapals collected and shipped the ball onto Johnny Liddell who claimed his 6th try of the season.

The Centurions opened second half scoring when Lingard’s nightmare continued. Within two tackles of the scrum, a smart dummy from Heremaia took him over by the posts.

With eight minutes gone, Leigh were back in the scoring groove and Rowley threw wide for Grix to put Dean Gaskell in at the corner.

There appeared to be no stopping Leigh when Heremaia combined with Grix and the Leigh fullback opened the defence for Hughes to stroll over after 53 minutes.

Paul Thorman forced Leigh to drop out from the restart and following a short spell of pressure big Joe Helme forced his way over, much to the delight of the Knights vociferous support.

Just beyond the hour mark, Hill saw an opportunity go down but the young forward showed steady hands two minutes later, combining with Forber for Hughes to score his second. Again York hit back when impressively Mapals changed speed and direction to score an individual try under the posts after 68 minutes, but Leigh finished strongly.

Gaskell scored a second try from a sweeping move, cheekily improving the angle for the conversion despite two defenders, then three minutes from the end Halliwell grabbed his 23rd try of the season following good interplay between Gary Sykes, Greenwood and Grix, who chipped forward for the centre to score.

Winning coach Tony Benson said “We’ve been focusing on playing well and gaining some momentum and I was very happy with the effort. Our go-forward was good. We have a bit of stability around our halves which has helped a lot. Carl [Forber] is playing particularly well and Aaron [Heremaia] has really hit some form. It’s good to see that tries are being scored wider and we are creating the opportunity in the middle.”

“There were too many errors at crucial times.” Reflected Mick Cook, “At one stage they were physically too strong for us, they were pushing up into holes and offloads kept their attack flowing. We worked hard – our tackle count was way over 300 for the game which is a massive amount for 12 men to complete. We worked hard and I can’t knock the players for that.”

GAMEBREAKER: Buckley’s sending off combined with a ruthless attacking first quarter took this game away from the visitors.

GAMESTAR: Paul Rowley – The skipper was involved in everything Leigh had to offer and helped create four of their 12 tries.

Leigh Centurions
1. Scott Grix
2. Dean Gaskell
3. Adam Hughes
4. Danny Halliwell
5. Lee Greenwood
6. Carl Forber
7. Aaron Heremaia
8. Ricky Bibey
9. Paul Rowley
10. Dana Wilson
11. Paul Prescott
12. Chris Hill
13. Rob Roberts
SUBS (All Used)
14. Gary Sykes
15. Neil Roden
16. Bryn Hargreaves
17. Warren Stevens

Tries: Heremaia (6, 44), Halliwell (10 ,77), Grix (17), Bibey (20), Forber (23), Greenwood (29), Gaskell (48, 74), Hughes (53, 64).
Goals: Forber 6/12.
Sin-binned:
Dismissed:

York City Knights
1. Lee Mapals
2. Lee Lingard
3. Chris Spurr
4. Austin Buchanan
5. Peter Fox
6. Scott Rhodes
7. Paul Thorman
8. Adam Sullivan
9. Johnny Liddell
10. James Ward
11. Jason Golden
12. Dave Buckley
13. Rob Spicer
SUBS (All Used)
14. Jamaine Wray
15. Nathan Priestley
16. Mark Blanchard
17. Joe Helme

Tries: Liddell (40), Helme (55), Mapals (68)
Goals: Thorman 2/3.
Sin-binned:
Dismissed: Dave Buckley (1 – Late tackle)

Referee: Julian King (St Helens)
Penalties: 7-7
GLDO: 1-2
Half-time: 30-4
Full-time: 60-16

Attendance: 2,147

Rugby Leaguer & League Express Men of the Match:
Leigh: Paul Rowley
York: Lee Mapals

Scoring Sequence:
4-0; 8-0; 12-0; 18-0; 24-0; 30-0; 30-4; 36-4; 40-4; 46-4; 46-10; 50-10; 50-16; 54-16; 60-16.

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