Rugby Union
OLs pay the price for poor start at Leamington

Buy photos » Ollie Cowley heads for the try line at Leamington. Picture by Ray Todd.

Leamington 25 Old Laurentians 20

Midlands Two West (South)

A POOR first half performance Old Laurentians helped sentence them to defeat against fellow promotion chasers Leamington on Saturday.

OLs have fallen to fourth in the table following the reverse and now lie one point behind Leamington and three behind Newbold in second ahead of Saturday’s home clash with ninth placed Kidderminster.

As well as the league points on offer in Saturday’s clash, the two sides were also playing for the inaugural Brian White Memorial Trophy. Brian died suddenly last year and had been a long time stalwart of Leamington as well as a close friend of OLs and the teams served up a match full of drama and excitement that he would have enjoyed.

OLs did not enjoy much about the first 40 minutes though as Leamington, inspired by half backs Northover and Carroll, completely dominated the game.

With the home back row tearing into anyone wearing green, OLs barely ventured out of their own half and appeared to have no idea on how to break the stranglehold.

Just eight minutes had passed when Carroll put a teasing kick deep into OLs’ territory and Northover scored the opening try.

Northover added two penalties in quick succession to make it 11-0 as OLs continued to fumble their way through the game.

Carroll latched on to an over ambitious pass on the half hour and ran unhindered for 50m to touch down, Northover converted to make it 18-0 at the break.

OLs had the slight slope in their favour in the second half and for the next 35 minutes they were a team transformed.

Just as Leamington had done for the first 40 minutes they were relentless in their pressure and dominance, scoring three excellent tries to come back from 18-0 down to 20-18 ahead.

Fly half Jon Bean opened his OLs account with a penalty three minutes into the half before in the tenth minute, Iain Wallis broke back inside and found Ollie Cowley on his shoulder to score a try converted by Bean.

The visitors were now in complete control and Bean was kicking to the corner well to keep the pressure on.

An attempted Leamington clearance was fielded by Ben Wiles who threw a long pass to Simon Bayliss for the wing to arc outside the defence for a fine try.

Another strong drive from OLs’ pack five minutes later saw Bean explore a wide blind side before sending Bayliss on his way for a second try and a 20-18 lead with ten minutes left.

Leamington reached OLs’ 22 for the first time in the half with six minutes left and won two penalties in quick succession, the second of which they opted to take a scrum from.

For the first time in the contest OLs were pushed backwards and when they tried to gain possession illegally, the referee had no choice but to award a penalty try which Northover converted.