South lose out away from home

South travelled to new boys Sandbach unable to match the desire and passion of the home side and consequently came away with a very disappointing result.
South were without Gaz Clarke, Andy Gates, Chris Bale and Simon Johnson. They did, however, welcome back Mark Lord who returned to the 1st XV for his first game of the season after minor knee surgery in the summer. Danny Graney moved to inside centre to cover Gates, while Dave Weston, Josh McLaurin and Wes Cartwright came in.
A score of 8-7 to the home side at half time South really didn’t do themselves justice after the break.
Will Cave and Sam Greasley scored tries, with Joe Glover converting one and adding a penalty to bring some respectability to the scoreline as South conceded four tries.
A bizarre refereeing performance resulted in a penalty try for both sides neither, apparently, deserved!
Back at home next week with the other newcomers Bournville visiting Welford Road.

Report below courtesy of Sandbach RFC

South Leicester are one of the well-established teams in National 3 Midlands and their game is based around a very heavy pack of forwards who use their size and experience to grind away at the opposition. There’s no doubt that for the first 20 minutes of this match that tactic was working although, other than a rather generous Penalty Try, the method had failed to breach the Sandbach defence.

Gradually Sandbach weathered the storm and began to take control as assured handling and astute tactical kicking from Will Cargill started to test the fitness of the visitors’ pack.Josh Longson and Ali burton began to find gaps around the fringes forcing the Leicester team to step back and reorganise time and time again.

On the 35 minute mark, the Sandbach high-tempo game finally bore fruit as, with the ball moving from one side of the park to another, Benny Elliot ran over to score a great try as reward for some really outstanding close, sharp passing involving both backs and forwards.With their tails now up Sandbach swarmed back after the restart and good carries from Will Stockdale and Matt Beesley helped the home team drive play to within 15 metres of the Leicester line where they were eventually adjudged to have handled the ball on the ground. Cargill took the 3 points from the resulting penalty to give Sandbach a well-deserved 8-7 lead at half time.

Following the break the Sandbach team threw everything at the visitors and in a thrilling 25 minutes scored 4 unanswered tries, the first of which came from Matt Pollen and was quite typical for Sandbach. A few forward drives to suck in the defence and then the ball whipped out wide with speed to Pollen who ran in unopposed with Richard Murray outside also unopposed. Cargill missed the conversion from the touchline.

The second Sandbach try of the half was scored by Jack Seddon who controlled the ball well at the back of a line-out drive and chose his moment well to break from the maul and dive over to score. Elliot took the extra 2 points. The next Sandbach score was another Penalty Try, the second in the game awarded by the referee and the second to puzzle both players and supporters alike. Elliot took the extra points.

The final Sandbach try came as a result of a scrum on the half way line when eventual Man of the Match, Longson, broke the gain line, was tackled but recycled the ball quickly to Cargill who stepped inside his defender and shot the ball wide to Pollen. A quick pass to Jack Leech and then back to Pollen left the defence chasing shadows as Pollen dived over to complete his brace for the game.

Credit to Leicester and a lesson to Sandbach though as the visitors came back strongly to score two excellent tries, separated only by a Ben Elliot penalty in response, and thus add an element of respectability to the score. In the dying moments of the game and with the referee about the blow the final whistle Elliot kicked a massive drop-goal from just inside the Leicester half to finish the game at 38-22.

Sandbach continue to impress the faithful and confound the ‘Experts’ All 17 of the online National 3 Pundits Prediction League anticipated a loss for Sandbach on Saturday and all 17 got it wrong!