Leeds Met A – 14
NURL – 14
Fresh from their Christmas break the Owls played out a 14-14 draw away at fellow table-toppers Leeds Met 2nds. With a near-full strength team making the trip to Leeds, the Owls were hoping to push above their Premier North league rivals in their first match in over a month.
The opening moments were finely balanced, with the visitors penning the hosts in their own half, however, with little over five minutes on the clock, Leeds opened the scoring. After a number of hit ups through their dribbling props, Leeds – fielding an unrecognisable team from the one that travelled to Newcastle earlier in the season – went over in the corner for the first try of the match. Unsurprisingly, their simpleton kicker missed the conversion.
The first half continued to be a balanced encounter, with props Breadlift Dawson and El Dan Caparros working tirelessly to thwart Leeds a number of Leeds attacks. It was not until midway through the first half that NURL got points on the board, with stand-in hooker and poshest player in Rugby League – James Phillips – scooting over from five yards out. In the absence of regular kicker Robse C. Seagreaves, NURL’s wonky nosed stand-off Chris Griffiths stepped an slotted the kick…10 meters short of the posts.
The twenty minute mark saw a change of props, and the entry of fitness freak Will Winter. The Warrington walrus struck fear in the eyes of the Leeds defence as his disregard for his own safety allowed him to win a number of attacking yards. Unfortunately, the bulimic bullet’s disregard for self preservation proved his downfall, as he was leveled by a gargantuan Leeds prop and left the field with a head injury. Fortunately, NURL had an expert medical team ready to treat the slobbering sloth, who declared himself fit to re-enter the match a few minutes later. It was no more than thirty seconds after rejoining the action, however, that the partially concussed prop was once again flattened, this time by a pair of blood thirsty Leeds defenders. Luckily for the Owl’s (and nationwide fast food outlets) the Warrington walrus is expected to make a full recovery.
There was still time in the first half for both teams to record more points. Myles Hudson went over in the corner thanks to a pin point pass from skipper Poops McGeezer, which finished a flowing move from the Owls’ back line. NURL’s stand-in kicker did the business for the death machine, missing the kick by twenty yards.
The match was on a knife edge at half time, with only a few points in it.
The start of the second half and the Owls had to dig deep to remain in the ascendancy. Loose forward Mikey Ward was consistently influential with and without the ball, creating a number of openings for the visitors. Similarly, second row Dave Knox carved open a number of holes in the Leeds defense with clinical running lines. The Owls eventually found a way through the Leeds defense in the second half; a break from Wacky Jack Wearside had the Leeds drongos scrambling before he offloaded to Chris Griffiths who bundled it over the line. The stand off maintained his 100% conversion record by blasting the ball wide of the posts.
In the absence of the Owls’ regular wingers, Sam Flowers produced a sterling performance in both attack and defence, ducking under a numerous challenges to relieve the pressure on the visitors in some sticky situations. A few moments later and NURL were awarded a penalty beneath the posts. As a team of academics, the Owls decided to trust their reliable kicker with the duty of converting the penalty, despite the lack of a kicking tee. Astonishingly, Griffiths successfully converted the penalty giving the death machine a 14 – 10 points advantage.
This enthralling match still had one twist left in its tail, as the Leeds retards managed to scrape a flukey try just before the death. However, this left their kicker with a challenging conversion attempt and, luckily for the Owls, the drooling idiot missed the conversion – leaving the teams level on points at 14 – 14 – which ended as the final score.
The Owls may view this as points dropped in their league campaign, however on a difficult day in Leeds it was a respectable result against a very well oiled outfit. The death machine must knuckle down to regain fitness ahead of their two matches against John Moores in the space of four days, starting at Cochrane park next wednesday.