Oh, The Heady Smell Of Pimms!
By Baldur
September 5 2005
A cold, bright day at Headingley saw the Tykes attempting to reach their first ever Twickenham cup final. A disapprovingly low crowd of under three and a half thousand turned up to roar on the boys (and the bhoys!) to victory and made plenty of noise…well at least the drum section did!
An exciting, pulsating game of flowing rugby it may not have been, but Leeds can take heart from a game they dominated for most of the 80 minutes. If they play with this much grit and determination for the remaining games of the season then maybe, just maybe, relegation can be staved off.
In a game dominated by forward play the opening quarter saw Leeds camped in the Exiles half for lengthy spells but unable to capitalise on this. Parksy in particular seems to be enjoying himself, getting stuck in and frustrating the hell out of the opposition pack. The game though suddenly
burst into life when Ross made a brilliant run through the middle of the Irish before putting Phil Christophers through for what looked to be the opening score only for Bishop to make a try-saving tackle. Another turnover by Leeds soon after however, and there was Parks again to feed the
ball out, eventually reaching Chris Bell who opened the scoring for Leeds.
A seemingly inane drop-goal attempt from the Exiles almost led to Leedssecond score of the afternoon, Balshaw hoofing downfield, chasing his own kick and eventually forcing a penalty. Unfortunately, following Ross’ kick for touch, the Leeds pack made a rare (for this game anyway!) hash of it and the chance to consolidate the score was lost.
Ross made good his earlier missed conversion when he dropped a goal just before half time. And although Irish struck back straight away, the Tykes went into the break 8-3 up and looked good to increase that in the second half.
Irish though, had other ideas, and started the second half as though they were determined to make a game of it at last! But it was still 15 minutes before they managed to close the gap, with Maplecroft getting a penalty to make it 8-6 and suddenly, things looked different. Pressure by the Exiles was relieved when Balshaw chased an Irish chipped ball and took it forward, setting up a ruck which allowed the Tykes forwards to again display their dominance and take the ball upfield before teen sensation David Doherty flew past the defence and touched down in the corner. Ross duly converted, with an outstanding kick from the touchline and the Tykes looked home and dry:
even with 15 minutes left to play.
If we can dominate games like this, even though the tries seemed to elude Leeds, the question MUST be asked…how the hell are we bottom of the ZP? But for now that’s all forgotten. What we have is a trip to Twickenham (oh, the heady smell of Pimm’s dear boy!) and a chance of cup glory. But to be honest, I WOULD swap that for survival in the ZP.
COME ON YOU TYKES!!!