Leeds Count Cost of Victory

Victory, but at what cost? That was question that popped into the minds of all the 1100 hardy souls who sat in the chilly plastic seats on Sunday, as they looked on while Leigh Hinton left the field in pain, following a dreadful "tackle" from the Romanian opponents.

By that time the game was already pretty much sealed. Whatever team turned out in Bucharest to make Leeds fight for their 10-6 victory away from home, it clearly didn't make the flight over to Headingley. The game itself was reminiscent of the Leeds v Manchester debacle a season ago where a 58-0 drubbing was meted out and the hosts were disappointed it was so few.

From the off Leeds had the measure of the Bucharest team, and it wasn't long before Hendre Fourie barged over for the first score of the game, Ceiron Thomas getting the extras. Those two injury returnees looked hungry and were excellent throughout the game. Shortly after that Seru Rabeni ran his trademark straight lines and got over for the second, with Thomas again adding two more points.

Mike McDonald got the third try wide out following the now recognisable pattern of forward dominance and recycling, McDonald blitzing the short side from close in. With Cieron Thomas receiving treatment for a knock that was to bring a premature halt to his game, Henry Paul stepped up for the conversion attempt. Sadly, the only missed kick at goal in the match left the score at 19-0 with 22 minutes gone.

The Romanians were clearly frustrated - either with their own relative lack of ability or with the referee, I can't be certain (although I thought the ref was one of the better ones we've had this season) - and chose to take this frustration out in illegal tactics. After Ceiron Thomas received a knock and had to be replaced by Jason Strange, Leigh Hinton was savagely dump-tackled after already having spilled the ball forward; this was an off-the-ball incident that really should have received more of a punishment than it got, but the upshot was that Hinton was slowly and carefully escorted from the pitch. We await news from the club to determine how much damage was done.

Luther Burrell took the wingers spot at this substitution with Richard Welding going to full-back, although Sparky himself had taken a previous knock, but soldiered on. Leeds answered in the best way possible with the bonus point try from Lee Blackett, Strange adding the extras to make it 26-0. With frequent transgressions from the Romanians, the referee Mr. Damasco lost his patience and binned their number 8, and following a bit of a dust up, their prop also got his marching orders just before the break. Marco Wentzel scored his first try for the club after TykesRugby.co.uk's very own Scott Mathie released him down the short side, and with Chippy getting a difficult touchline conversion, the sides went in at 33-0.

The second half was a pretty turgid affair. The game was already won, the weather was getting colder and colder as the sun disappeared over the horizon, but the Romanians weren't going to give up and thus the game fragmented. Leeds lost a bit of their shape and composure as their concentration let them down, and there were a couple of good attacking spells from Bucharest which made Leeds knuckle down and defend their line. The quality wasn't there though and all too often the Bucharest passes went behind their indended target or were knocked on; certainly a better team would have punished Leeds' lackadaisical attitude in the second half.

Some sparks of inspiration were still there, and Henry Paul scored the sixth after slicing through the weak cover, and Sparky got the final score under the posts after breaking through from 20m out and beating the last man with a classical step. Injuring himself in the act of scoring, Leeds played out the rest of the game with 14 men. Both conversions were made, and the final score was 47-0.

Afterwards Neil Back said this was the worst forwards' performance of the season. At the time I thought that was a bit harsh, but on reflection I see where he was coming from. Particularly in the second half, the composure wasn't there and it began to look like a 4th XV fixture rather than two European teams. Better teams than Bucharest (and there are lots of them) will punish Leeds severely with performances like this - there is lots of work to do.