South blow over Longton

South welcomed Longton to a windy and firm Welford Road counting the cost of the midweek County Cup final victory over Hinckley. Combative No8 Chris Bale and Lock Sam Badham missing due to injury. Rob Sands taking over at No8 with Ben Antill at lock and Wes Cartwright starting at No7.
South started strongly taking the game to Longton with both forwards and backs combining to push for the opening score. Mark Lord had two chances to open South's account, but both penalties were blown wide of the mark by the awkward cross wind. The home side did take the lead in the 12th minute when the ball was moved right to winger Matt Thomas who made all the running, was stopped just short of the line, but offloaded in style to Wes Cartwright who touched down. His first try for the 1st XV. Lord converted using the wind to good effect.
Longton came back strongly to pressure the South defence where Dom Green was sin binned for not rolling away from the tackle area. The resultant penalty was missed. Both sides pressed for supremacy, but seemed unable to string together more than a few phases of possession affected by both the conditions and their own handling mistakes. It was as late as the 40th minute when Lord stepped up to convert two penalty kicks to stretch the South lead to a welcome 13 points going into half time.
Now playing against the wind South put together some better phases with Jim Matthews, Dom Green and Mark Bayley keeping the ball close and making headway into the Longton territory. Their No 10 was then harshly sinbinned although he had been involved in an altercation with the aforementioned Matthews earlier. Lord made no mistake with the resultant penalty and South were rolling again.
Continual pressure from South was the order of the day until an attacking mix up enabled Longton to intercept and make the running with replacement winger Hallam scoring a try against the run of play. The wind played its tricks again and they failed to convert.
On the hour Greg Hurst came on for an injured Gaz Nicholson and showed his pace combining to break out of defence with Rich Lang forcing Longton back onto the back foot. They, however wouldn't lie down, missed a kickable penalty after Keiron Collins was again harshly binned, but scored a try courtesy of hooker Glenn wide to the right of the posts. The conversion was missed, but game on.
Steve Harris for Jim Matthews and Rich James for Andy Harris entered the contest and Mark Lord settled South with his fourth penalty having to drill it hard and low into the gale. Tom Armstrong put the icing on the cake by scoring a try in the last minutes again converted by Lord to seal the game in South's favour at 26-10.
Longton kicked off but South responded with probably their best move of the match (probably the season) to surge forward. A combination of many pairs of hands, two recycling phases and great running enabled lock Ben Antill to get over the line. Unfortunately, he was held up and the final whistle sounded - what might have been!
South now look forward to the visit of league leaders Broad Street knowing that victory will postpone Street's celebrations, but defeat will confirm the visitors as Midlands 1 champions.
Whatever happens the knowledge that Hinckley cannot overtake South now ( whatever entertaining style they allegedly use in their remaining games) is paramount in cementing South's position as Leicestershire's top team in this division - winning the County Cup was additional confirmation!

You will notice that I have had no need to mention the referees performance as he enabled the game to flow, got most decisions right and was empathetic to both sets of players while taking into consideration the vagaries of the conditions. Good Job!

Team: Lang, Thomas, Armstrong, Collins, Nicholson (Hurst), Lord, McFredries, Sands, Cartwright, March (c), Matthews (Harris S), Harris A (James), Green, Bayley.

Mtach report:Phil Lord