Leeds struggle up front

By Ian Todd
January 26 2013

In cold and rainy conditions Bristol did enough to see off the challenge of Leeds.  The Bristol scrum was totally  on top of the visitors'.  in fact there were three or four strikes against the head.  The least said about the lineout the better.  It wasn't an evening for the backs to shine, but both Bristol's half back pairings looked sharp and in control and their wer actually some quite neat backline moves.  I tend to judge a performance by how much of the game i see from Idiots Corner and I saw relatively little in the first half and quite a bit in the second so that means BRistol deserved the win, even if it was workmanlike rather than spectacular.

Leeds applied the early pressure but steely Bristol defence, Jason Hobson to the fore, contained the threat and then turned over possession.  Good kicking from Adrian Jarvis and some decent  forward play soon had Leeds back into their own half and Jarvis kicked the first points of the evening when Leeds infringed.

He was successful again when Leeds gave away another penalty.  It was soon 9 – 0 with another penalty kick following the sin-binning of Barrow for what people around me said was a trip, but looked like a high tackle to me.  Perhaps it was both; a trip and a high tackle as Ben Mosses fell?  Sadly Bristol failed to make much of the one man advantage despite having near total dominance of the scrum.  In contrast the lineout looked shaky all night.  In any event Jarvis struck again just before half time to make it a deserved 12 – 0 lead.

It was a different story in the second half, with Leeds soon on the scoreboard with an excellent long range effort from Clegg.  Bristol almost immediately had the chance to wipe out the score but Jarvis was well off target.

Clegg almost got on the scoresheet with an audacious drop-goal attempt, but to the relief of the increasingly sodden crowd it struck the post.  Clearly he had his eye in because his next penalty also struck the upright.  At last he managed to miss the posts and it was 12 – 6.

He then made it 12 – 9 after an incident in which what at first seemed a Bristol penalty became a Leeds one after touch judge and referee conferred.  I have no idea what it was about, but the crowd over that side didn’t sound too happy (and of course they are totally impartial).

Fortunately Bristol managed to keep their heads, the judicious use of replacements helped steady the ship and introduced some extra pace.  Leeds struggled to contain the new impetus and the replacement hooker saw yellow without even getting his jersey dirty.  Bristol took the game to the visitors up front with a succession of scrums following penalties and free-kicks.  They rumbled close to the line on a couple of occasions but just lacked the killer edge that would have taken the game beyond Leeds.  Finally the ball went loose and Leeds were able to kick the ball down field.   The lineout proved to be the last action of the game when the whistle blew with the ball knocked on and Bristol were able to celebrate.