Beverley’s promising unbeaten start to the season came to an abrupt halt against a well drilled, determined and ultimately hungrier Leo’s on Saturday. A tight first 15 mins saw both sides go close however, a number of mistakes including an unprecedented number of forward passes meant both sides squandered opportunities. With Max Redmond, Dan Lee, and Beau English, making good yards it was likely that the Beavers would score first. They duly obliged when Jamie Maltas added to his impressive tally as the Beavers opened the scoring 5-0.

However, the lead didn’t last long as Leo’s well drilled pack worked their way over from a lineout close to the Beverley line 5-7. The hosts though ensured that they had their noses in front at the break as from the resultant kick off Leo’s knocked on, and from the scrum Rob Smith darted to the blind side and fed Jake Boardman to race around his winger and make the score 10-7 Beverley at halftime.

It was the visitors who came out fastest after the break and edged themselves into the lead after lethargy in Beverley’s defence allowed them to score with a well worked try almost from the kick off 10-12. With Leo’s disrupting the Beverley lineout and being generally sharper in the breakdown they began to excerpt a period of pressure which was rewarded as their lively scrum half darted through a hole to extend the lead to 10-19.

Beverley now came to life and Rob Smith took three points after a good sustained attacking spell by the home side 13-19. Generally, though Leo’s impressive defence kept Beverley at bay and with the home side giving away penalties at key points they never managed the score they needed. Indeed, it was a clearance through and bobbling ball that Leo’s capitalised on and extended their lead as they scored again 26-13. For the home side Josh Dillon’s tireless running pushed Beverley forward and they pulled the score back to 26-18, with Ed Mills being sent over by a sharp Max Bayes pass. A comeback wasn’t to be however, as the difficult missed conversion and the lack of time remaining meant that Beverley couldn’t really make it a grandstand finish.

Stephanie Hazell