South off to a flyer

A much changed South Leicester 1st XV with only 7 survivors from last season in the match day 18 blew northern visitors Sheffield Tigers away in the opening game of this season. Twenty four points up in as many minutes shocked the Tigers who had no answer to the South Blitzkrieg.

Captain Mike March opened the scoring after a forward drive with Mark Lord added the conversion from wide on the right. Lord added a penalty in the 10th minute and converted his own try after latching onto a Matt Fisher cross kick.
Connor Smith got into the act after a slick Lord break touching down under the posts leaving Lord with the formality of an easy conversion.

Sheffield came back into contention after South’s Josh McLaurin and Dan Holmes were yellow carded with an unconverted try by No8 Brandon Hannam. The Tigers piled on the pressure either side of half time mauling the ball well and scored another try via centre Gareth Morley converted by fly half Joe Wright to close the score to 24-12.

South, however, had other ideas with Dan Holmes scoring from an ACT move converted by Lord and Chris Bale going over to move South away to 36-12 and a bonus point for scoring four or more tries.
Sheffield scored an unconverted try in the last minute to bring the final score to 36 -17 in South’s favour.

This is the first time in the five season’s that South have played at level five that they have tasted victory on the opening day of the season. Long may it continue!

Team: Holmes, Curtis, Smith, Gavin, Fisher, Lord, McFedries, Bale C, March © (Cartwright), McLaurin, Antill, Badham S, Stapleton, Badham M, Robson (Bayley)

Unused replacement: Lang.

Man of the Match: Joe Gavin (normally a back rower) as he took the place at inside centre at the last minute as Rich Lang tweaked a hamstring in the warm up, with Dan Holmes moving to full back.