Ashfield coast to win at Leesbrook

Ashfield RUFC’s first XV made light of the early loss of Nick Brearley to coast to a 60-0 away win at Leesbrook.

This looked to be a relatively easy game, but with two minutes played the loss of hooker Nick Brearley, who sets the team’s tempo, to a calf strain could have been crucial.
The first 10 minutes of play saw Leesbrook encamped deep in the Ashfield half and, if not for some resolute defending by Dan and Scott Chapman, Greg Newbutt and Matt Turnbull, Ashfield could have been a couple of tries down before their back line started to move through the gears.
Billy North’s defending was the pivotal turning point that allowed the Ashfield backs to lay the platform for what was a nine-try rout.

North feeding Tom Childs, who replaced Matt Upton at scrum half, broke from the halfway line, drew in the defence and popped a great pass to Guy Jones, who ran in from 20m on 18 minutes.
On 32 minutes, Tom Childs was again instrumental in another move that resulted in the second try for Ashfield.

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Childs’ passed to his half back partner North, whose chip and chase wrong-footed the home side’s defence and set the Ashfield pack deep into their opponents’ half.
The forwards drove forward and on the third phase of recycling, Jake Manning broke the game-line and ran in Ashfield’s second try unopposed from 15m.

With no conversation from either try, Ashfield moved into a deserved 10-0 lead.
Prop forward Chris Houseman stole the ball from a Leesbrook attack and set off down the 5m channel. Again the defence was drawn and, with Billy North on his outside, Houseman played in North for a 35m score, North also adding the conversion.
The Ashfield team was now playing with an assurance that saw Jake Manning again break the game line and, but for a high tackle on him, should have scored a certain try, North still slotting the penalty home from 22m.
A fine first half performance by Gareth Jones, saw him break from the base of the scrum. After breaking two tackles, his accurate pass to Tom Childs saw him run 35m to score a great try.

With Gareth Purnell adding the conversion the score at half-time was 27-0 to Ashfield.
Ashfield started the second half as they finished the first with wave after wave of attack down the left flank, Jake Manning, Aidan Richardson and Gavin Appleby all playing their part setting up on the seventh phase of play to give Guy Jones his second try of the game.
Injuries started to take their toll on the home side before Jake Manning seemed to take on the entire Leesbrook defence, then set up Brett Leivers to crash over from close range, Gareth Purnell adding the conversion.
The forwards now had their say after Billy North sent a huge penalty kick deep into the Leesbrook half. The resulting nine-phase scoring drive, created a score for Chris Houseman from 5m out, credit going to the second row pairing of Mark Denman, James Kirk and scrum half Childs.
The referee issued a yellow card to a Leesbrook player for persistent foul play that on another day might have seen a penalty try awarded, but North sensed the initiative with a quick tap penalty to score from close range and with another conversion by Purnell the score was 53-0.

With time almost up North sent another long ball down field that turned the home defence, and with Manning and Leivers chasing the kick it was inevitable it would end in another Ashfield try, Leivers scoring his second in typical fashion after taking on two defenders.

Garth Purnell completed the scoring with the conversion.

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