Match report 21 September

Flying start, frustrating finish

Leeds Tykes maintained their unbeaten start to the season by racking up a near half-century of points in a disjointed 49 – 16 win over Hull RUFC. Home fans were thrilled to see the return of some of their favourite players: Eddie Brown, Jerry Bai and Kieran Davies were making their first starts of the season after coming back from injuries.

Similarly to previous weeks, Leeds made a quickfire start. They sealed a try bonus point within the first 20 minutes.

Ill discipline allowed their East Riding neighbours back into the match and made the middle forty minutes scratchy. When Josh Hough was enjoying 10 minutes in the sin-bin, Henry Macnab was drafted into the back row.

Nevertheless, Leeds managed to put together some nice attacking moves to cement their relatively unblemished home start.

Early tries came from Tom Williams, and the ever-improving Ben Turpin before Adam Brown and Ewan Laughton crossed to make it maximum points. James Watts added all the necessary extras to continue his fine start to the campaign from the tee. 

Josh Hough and Harry Whitfield found themselves having 10 minutes in the sin-bin. While the former was resting, Harry Macnab found himself scrumaging in the back row. When the Tykes’ discipline went awry, Harrison Astley was the main beneficiary notching three from a possible five penalties. Hull’s only try came from Alex Heard on 59 minutes.

Leeds added three second-half tries with Eddie Brown, Ben Turpin and Jack Smith all dotting down. Watts added two conversions before late replacement Seremaia Bai Turagabeci added the final extras.

Leeds could have come away with more tries but did more than enough to reach the 5-point objective.

After the match, Director of Rugby, Pete Seabourne said: “Frustrating, very frustrating. We looked quite comfortable at 28-0 up after 20 minutes. We played quite well and then gave away a lot of penalties. With 5 points, it’s obviously job done but there is still loads more to do.

“The pleasing thing is Jerry, Eddie and Kieran coming back and we’ve 2 or 3 more, hopefully, coming into it next week.”

Head Coach, Pete Lucock explained: “Really good 20 minutes, then ill-discipline let Hull back into the game. We’ve had 3 performances that we shouldn’t be satisfied with; results, yes, performance-wise, no.

“We need to look at our mindset, our discipline. We need to be smarter taking our chances, and keep hold of the ball for more phases rather than forcing it and letting teams off the hook.”

Henry Macnab, who many thought scored the third try that was attributed to Adam, added: “We probably should’ve scored a few more. It’s the best game we’ve had so far this season, so we are getting there.

“The coaches are very clear on what they want. We have to do it for 80 minutes. We need to stay in the systems that the coaches tell to do to be more consistent.”