Buzzards blitz ‘em

LEIGHTON Buzzard, sponsored by Grundfos, welcomed local rivals Dunstable to Wrights Meadow on Saturday and sent them home with a big defeat.

With a young side bolstered by a few older heads, Leighton went into the game feeling confident, despite their previous defeat to Derby.

From the kick off Leighton took the initiative but, just like last week, they couldn’t get over the line. In fact it was Dunstable who created the first chance to put points on the board with a penalty on the hosts’ 10m line - but the ball fell short.

The Dunstable team were full of confidence and both forwards and backs attacked at every opportunity but they were unable to breach the Leighton defence.

Leighton were not to be flustered and slowly gained their composure, defended well, and started to make breaks from their own half. The best of them allowed Langhorn to go over just wide of the posts, Dan David adding the conversion.

This was followed three minutes later with a great try straight off two training ground moves. From a lineout on the far side Leighton drove at the visitors’ defence and passed the ball through a number of phases - finally a great piece of switch play by the backs opened the Dunstable defence to allow Euan Irwin to gallop in under the posts untouched, converted by Dan David.

This was followed five minutes later by the try that effectively won the game for Buzzards. Defending hard on their own line, Buzzards’ forwards managed to turn the ball over and pass back to David.

The number 10 chipped ahead and collected the ball, then some great support play allowed veteran Carl Siddon the opportunity to run half the length of the field to score under the posts, converted by David.

Irwin managed to score on the half hour mark to give Leighton the bonus point before scoring again on the stroke of half time to stretch his side’s lead to 31-0 and Leighton were cruising.

The second half was always going to be difficult, not only because of the gusting wind and heavy pitch, but also in terms of keeping their discipline and concentration.

Dunstable managed to get back in the game with some hard won ball up front that sucked in the Leighton defence and the visitors eventually managed to go over for a try for prop George, converted by Hobbs.

This was the only time Dunstable would trouble the scoreboard as Leighton were soon back in control and a great break down the far side allowed flanker Peter White to go over in the corner, with again David stepping up to slot the extras.

There was more to come as finally in the last two minutes of the game Leighton’s forwards secured the ball in a ruck and passed it out to prop Nick Turney who dived over the line for the last score of the game.

Both coaches for the home side were delighted with the final result, Andy Micans saying: “You cannot feel anything but pride coming away with seven tries from such a difficult game that could easily have been a banana skin.”

On Saturday Leighton head north to face Ilkeston.