Mayfield second team at home to Leigh

Mayfield NWC played hosts to Leigh Central at the Mayfield Sports Centre on Saturday (11 September 2010) and what a cracking game of rugby league this was.

Ashwoth and Connoly welcomed back some key players for this first home game of the season English, Todd and Abrhams all played their first games of the season and their class shone through with the rest of the team responding and lifting their games to match them.

Led by rock solid captain Mark Biggins the home sides defence was relentless, rocking the big Leigh pack in their boots. The tackle of the game came as the Leigh prop, a monster of a man burst onto the ball with only one thing in his mind, making big yards up field. Instead he met Biggins whose tackle was timed to perfection causing the big man to spill the ball and must have left him considering his future in rugby league.

It wasn’t all defence though, the attack was just as good with Andy Lee and Johnny Marsland orchestrating the plays this was the teams best display for a long time and left the crowd wanting more.

From the moment Paul Lane crossed for the first try converted by Marsland both crowd and players alike sensed victory and went all out to achieve this.

The second try came after Ellis and Biggins had combined to get good field position a quick play the ball saw Hancock give a crisp pass to Lee who dummied his way through a gap and handed on to Lane who crossed in the corner for his second, Lee converted superbly. Big Dave Ellis then spotted a gap in the defence which he exploited before offloading to the supporting Hancock from the resulting play the ball Biggins crashed through to score under the posts Marsland converted.

With the half time score at 18 - 0 Leigh looked dead and buried but to their credit they staged a revival after the break going over for two easy tries as Mayfield took a while to get back in their stride.

The thought of the visitors getting anything from this game galvanised the Mayfield players into action and they recaptured the fluency of the first half although it took a while before they got on the score sheet again.

A chip over from Hancock was fumbled by the fullback leaving three Mayfield players claiming the try which the referee rightly awarded to the ever improving Kristian Duffy, a couple of beef steak puddings in him and this lad will definitely make a rugby league player.

The final score of the game came from a flowing cross field move which allowed Paul White to stumble over for a converted try.

Final score 30-10.

The Leigh coach awarded the man of the match to skipper Mark Biggins but he was pushed all the way by Ellis and Abrham.