The new season has started and the lads were out in force determined to get the win and to getting back to what they do best on a Saturday afternoon. Fleetwood arrived at sunny Leigh in good spirits expecting good things, and started well.

There is always a fear that the first game of the season that the boys are slow to start or get gassed a little too early, but this wasn't the case.

For the first twenty minutes the Fleetwood pack bullied their Leigh counterparts, desperately trying to muscle their way over the try line and get the points the attacking play deserved. There were some notable big runs from Alex Maddern, Andy Holme, Mike Jackson and Phil Wood. Only resolute defending by the men in black and amber within their own 22 stopped Fleetwood from taking an early lead.

With this frustration started to settle in and Fleet started to make simple mistakes, which in turn allowed Leigh back into the game and on to the score board. The Leigh forwards pounced on the mistakes and the ball was quickly shifted out towards the speedy backs who capitalized and started scoring the points.

Fleetwood started losing their heads a little, all their hard work had not been rewarded from the first 20 minutes, and the play got sloppier allowing Leigh to rack up the points.

Some stern but fair words were said at half time, and Fleetwood came out on the offence looking to rectify the first half. Unfortunately that did not happen and Leigh continued their back line dominance.

Fleetwood had a few flashes of prominence in the 2nd half, Fly Half Woodhouse was starting to gel with his centers Kerr and Stelfox, Harrison Lumb was a constant nuisance around the breakdown and No. 8 Maddern was causing havoc with his direct running.

Young replacements O'Hara and Pearce showed good accounts of themselves off the bench and will look to build on their performances from this weekends game and in training.

Final Score Leigh 34 v 0 Fleetwood

The Leigh management team named Second Row Andy Holme as man of the match. Captain Jack Foden and Vice Captain Andy Holme conferred and named their number 9 as their man of the match. I had complete faith in my veteran winning the drinking contest against his much younger counterpart and bringing some pride back for the team. He lost.

There are a lot of positives to work with, if the boys can maintain their performance they showed in the first 20 minutes, they could well become a force in the league this year. This will only be achieved by hard work and attendance at training.

The lads put a lot of effort and probably didn't deserve to lose by as much as they did. Hopefully that is the cobwebs blown out and we can look forward to welcoming Littleborough at Melbourne Avenue next week.

Team:
15. Gornall; 14. Harland; 13. Stelfox; 12. Kerr; 11. Delaney; 10. Woodhouse; 9. Kirton; 1. Wood; 2. Pook; 3. Foden; 4. Holme; 5. Jackson; 6. Heer; 7. Lumb; 8. Maddern; Reps: 16. O'Hara; 17. Evans; 18. Pearce.

Fleetwood RUFC

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