Match Reports about Leigh Centurions since 1998

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Wednesday 6 January 2010

2008 Season Reports: Pre-season friendly: LEIGH 32 WORKINGTON 16

LEIGH CENTURIONS 32 WORKINGTON TOWN 16
Dave Parkinson from Hilton Park.

Leigh Centurions may have defeated Workington Town in the final pre-season run-out for both sides but it was Town boss Dave Rotherham who was by far the happier coach at full time.

“We competed with them in every department today.” Rotherham said.

“We spoiled, and they made a lot of errors because of our good defence. Ultimately I felt that their class showed in the last 15 minutes of each half. It was a good learning exercise. Not only that but I think it’s given our boys a lot of confidence now that we can actually compete with these top teams in Division One. We got a massive knock to our confidence early on against Whitehaven when they beat us by over forty points but we’ve come here and restored some of that today.”

“Obviously not everyone is firing on full cylinders today, but prizes are given out in October, not January and I’m sure each week from now on will give us chance to improve.”

Leigh threatened to run away with the game early on with strong running from Andy Hobson, Lee Doran and returning prop John Hill, playing his first game in ten months. Nathan McAvoy grabbed the first try after four minutes thanks to a well timed pass from Mike Wainwright.

Town showed great tenacity and no little skill however as swift passing released mobile second row Dexter Miller who drew Chris Giles before sending Rob Lunt over for the first of his two tries. Carl Forber converted via the post and Workington held a shock lead after 13 minutes.

Leigh regained the advantage at the end of the first quarter when Giles went under the posts from a Chris Hill break and offload.

Plucky Workington continued the seesaw scoring in the 28th minute after Miller again made good inroads. Strangely the ball became loose and Town played on with Marsh continuing the move along with Tom Armstrong before the alert Lunt once again supported to touch down in the corner. Former Centurion Forber landed a magnificent conversion and Town led 12-10.

The lead proved short-lived. A mistake deep in the Workington half gave Leigh possession and they attacked from the scrum with Adam Rudd timing the last pass for an emphatic McAvoy finish. Ian Watson converted before Forber was sinbinned for slowing play down.

With Watson and Dennis Moran ubiquitous in midfield another try was not long in coming and Moran’s clever kick found Steve Maden with time to judge the bounce and claim the try.

Leading by eight points at the interval, Leigh made a slow start to the second half and good Town defence kept them at bay, although Dave Alstead spilled a try-scoring pass in the corner. Scrappy play restricted both sides and it wasn’t until the 56th minute when a breakthrough finally occurred – Iain Marsh crashing through three defenders on the try line.

This sparked the Centurions effort and Leigh grabbed two further tries while also seeing two more scratched off. The first went the way of club captain Tony Stewart on the hour. Watson cleverly worked the midfield and John Hill offloaded, allowing Stewart to go over by the sticks.

Minutes later Watson was at his best with Stewart this time linking for Adam Rudd to crown a competent personal display with the final try that the former Halifax scrum-half converted.

Leigh football manager Darren Shaw felt the effort was patchy.
“I don’t think we gave Workington the respect they deserved initially.” He said.

“We dropped a fair bit of ball and our enthusiasm was a little disappointing. We’ll have to address these things before we play Barrow. I wanted to give some players a little more game-time than others, overall I was probably a little disappointed with our skills base today. Any game was going to benefit us but I felt we were a bit off the pace with things.”

GAMESTAR: Ian Watson marshalled Leigh well but there was little to choose between him, Andy Hobson in the front row with his natural aggression, Adam Rudd who excelled when switched to his favoured centre position and Town’s John Warringer who as a prop played around 70 minutes of the game and worked tirelessly.

MATCH STATS:

Leigh:
1 Chris Giles
2 Dave Alstead
3 Nathan McAvoy
4 Toa Kohe-Love
5 Steve Maden
6 Dennis Moran
7 Ian Watson
8 Andy Hobson
9 Aaron Smith
10 John Hill
11 Lee Doran
12 Mike Wainwright
13 James Taylor
SUBSTITUTES
14 Tony Stewart
15 Mike Morrison
16 Chris Hill
17 Gareth Price
Martin Keavney
Mark Roberts
Dave McConnell
Adam Rudd

Tries: McAvoy 2 (4, 32), Giles (20), Moran (39), Stewart (60), Rudd (68).
Goals: Watson 4/6.

Workington:
1 Mark McCully
2 Tom Armstrong
3 Iain Marsh
4 Mark Routledge
5 Jason Mossop
6 Matt Ashe
7 Carl Forber
8 Ryan Benjafield
9 Scott Burgess
10 John Warringer
11 Jamie Beaumont
12 Dexter Miller
13 Rob Lunt
SUBSTITUTES
14 Franco Kmet
15 Matthew Tunstall
16 Scott Gorman
17 Taani Lavulavu
18 James Robinson
19 Garry Purdham
20 Tyrone Dalton

Tries: Lunt 2 (13, 28), Marsh (56).
Goals: Forber 2/3

Referee: Mr Paul Carr (Castleford)
Penalties: 13-11
Half-time: 20-12
Attendance: Approx 850 (No official figure given)

Rugby Leaguer & League Express Men of the Match:
Leigh: Ian Watson
Town: John Warringer

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