Loughborough Women’s Rugby Union 1sts suffered their second defeat of the season after being outclassed by a rampant Leeds Metropolitan side. Dom Dyer reports for Label Sport.
Loughborough knew that Leeds Met would provide formidable opposition, holding an unbeaten record this season, and unfortunately they were too much for Loughborough. The rainy conditions were prominent throughout the game and meant that several handling errors really stopped the game from flowing.
Both sides started the game well with defences limiting line breaks and penalties few and far between. However, Leeds Met started to assert their dominance as the first half wore on and some neat hands down the line and an overlap resulted in the flanker superbly finishing in the corner under heavy pressure from covering defenders.
This only served to galvanise Loughborough, who turned over ball at the restart thanks to a huge hit on the Leeds Met prop. The hosts continued to pound away at the Leeds Met line, until a penalty in front of the sticks was awarded and they reduced the gap to two points.
Unfortunately, this was as good as it got for Loughborough in the first half with Leeds Met storming back with two quick converted tries, one of which came from an interception, to make it 3-19. This seemed to knock the stuffing out of Loughborough, and right on the stroke of half time Leeds Met added another with some lovely hands resulting in the full-back powering through a splintered defence to score under the posts and make it 26-3 at half-time.
Things didn’t get a lot better for Loughborough at the break, and with the rain continuing to hammer down, handling errors increased, only breaking up the play more. Leeds Met continued to show their superiority and crossed for a try midway through the second half courtesy of a quick tap and good hands down the line leading to a score in the corner.
However, Loughborough did show great resilience to keep their heads up and this resulted in a period of sustained pressure five meters out. Eventually, the ball went wide and the outside centre shimmied through a couple of tackles to touch down, to the delight of the home support.
Leeds Met were not done yet though; they added another couple of scores with the man of the match full-back adding one of them. As the final whistle went, the Leeds players celebrated in a huddle in the middle of the pitch and deservedly so, as Loughborough trudged off having been taught a lesson in quality attacking rugby.
Dom Dyer
