Sunday 15th February 2015Kingstone Press Championship
Leigh Centurions 36 Bradford Bulls 24
Atten 7499
Programme £2.50 - Superb 48 pages of interesting articles and colour photos. Great read. No wonder it got sold out.
View all Photos from Leigh Centurions
Bulls got off to a flyer and sort of caught Leigh by suprise by combining very well to score an early try and took a 12-0 lead. But Leigh were able to finally get in the Bulls 20' and score under the posts. Leigh's fightback was momentarily halted after a massive players brawl which ended up on the terraces. It soon became 11v11 as star Leigh signing Fuifui Moimoi entered the pitch. Few minutes later Leigh thought they had scored another try only for it to be ruled out for a forward pass. Moments later Leigh had yet another player shown the yellow card for a tackle of a Bulls player in mid air. It was an action packed first half. HT 6-20 During the interval i got mobbed by a group of beautiful Models who for some reason kept wanting to kiss me !
Leigh exploded in the 2nd half and fought back impressively.
Centurions’ hopes were further enhanced when Siejka was sinbinned for a second time for obstruction on the hour. A shattering break from Fuifui Moimoi put Leigh on a roll and Sean Penkywicz sent Tom Armstrong over for a try which leveled things at 20-20. Ridyard added the conversion to give Leigh the lead for the first time in the game, 22-20. But Bulls pounced on a Leigh knock on to nudge ahead 20-24 (conversion was missed).
Just when we thought the game was over with a Bulls win the Centurions came fighting back in gladiator fashion.There was no time to even draw breath in this breathless finale when late on Leigh grabbed a famous victory with a try, conversion and penalty. But then Leigh tried to seal the win with a drop goal but it hit the post and bounced out into the arms of a Bulls player who surged forward to get something from the game but then Leigh got the ball and scored a fantastic breakaway try in the last few seconds to send the home faithful into celebration.
I loved the way the players came and met the fans at the end of the game on the pitch. Signing autographs, posing for photos, and shaking everyones hands.
Both sets of fans generated an awesome atmosphere and LSV was bouncing all afternoon in Leigh Centurions' biggest match for many years.
It was a fantastic afternoon's entertainment and believe me, it very rarely gets better than this ... how could it ?
Love your site/photos/match reports. It is good to see that relegation/promotion's re-introduction in RL has given rise to well-attended matches like this one - 7K for 2nd div RL!. PS, Onion-Bag.blogspot.com is on my blogroll at billsportsmaps.com
ReplyDeleteBill , Thank You very much for your kind words - much appreciated.
Delete7k at LSV last week was phenomenal considering others average 1100. The noise generated was fantastic and the physical intensity and effort by both sets of players was remarkable.
It was my biggest ever matchday photo set for a very good reason .... it was simply brilliant in every respect. Best day out for ages by a country mile.
With the re-introduction of relegation/promotion it can only mean that its going to be and most entertaining season. Especially if last Sunday is anything to go by !
I am glad that you enjoyed the photos as much as i enjoyed making them.
#Love The Smash !