By Chilly Hax
January 17 2016

On a bitterly cold afternoon at Headingley, Yorkshire Carnegie progressed to the quarter finals of the B and I cup, with a deserved, if not totally convincing win over a Munster Select 15.

The game was over as a contest before half time as the hosts roared into a 31 – 10 lead, crossing the whitewash 5 times in the process. Three of those tries were credited to Andy Saull as he fastened himself on to the back of the rolling maul formed as Leeds took control of line outs close to the visitors’ line. The other two tries were fine individual efforts, Joe Graham finding himself in the clear some 35 yards out and sprinting to cross beneath the crossbar, and ‘Bruce’ Forsyth appropriately scoring the bonus point try with a determined run from inside his own half.

The word at half time was that some of the Munster side were non contracted players and hadn’t played together before, and it showed, so when Saull was again driven across the line on the restart, and Munster had a man sent for a 10 minute rest, we waited for the avalanche of tries to arrive. They did, but the next 3 were all scored by the opposition as Carnegie seemed to accept the job was done.

The visitors reduced the deficit to 9 points, and Yorkshire looked devoid of ideas. However as the game drew to its conclusion, the ever trusty maul returned, and although it didn’t go exactly to plan, replacement Josh Bainbridge added another try to his name, and the game was over.

Not easy conditions to play in, and the home team were so dominant in the scrum, and at the line out in the first stanza that the scoreline should have been much bigger. However, no matter how effective the rolling and driving maul, we do not appear to have a reliable plan B. Today was the opportunity to give the backs some free reign and show what they could do. It didn’t happen, and Goss and the Doc stood shivering out on the wing.

It was 5 points, regardless of what Munster got, but the second half display was poor, and defensively we didn’t look too good. Lots for the coaching team to work on, be interesting to see who plays next week, in what effectively, is a dead rubber.

The game was over as a contest before half time as the hosts roared into a 31 – 10 lead, crossing the whitewash 5 times in the process. Three of those tries were credited to Andy Saull as he fastened himself on to the back of the rolling maul formed as Leeds took control of line outs close to the visitors’ line. The other two tries were fine individual efforts, Joe Graham finding himself in the clear some 35 yards out and sprinting to cross beneath the crossbar, and ‘Bruce’ Forsyth appropriately scoring the bonus point try with a determined run from inside his own half.

The word at half time was that some of the Munster side were non contracted players and hadn’t played together before, and it showed, so when Saull was again driven across the line on the restart, and Munster had a man sent for a 10 minute rest, we waited for the avalanche of tries to arrive. They did, but the next 3 were all scored by the opposition as Carnegie seemed to accept the job was done.

The visitors reduced the deficit to 9 points, and Yorkshire looked devoid of ideas. However as the game drew to its conclusion, the ever trusty maul returned, and although it didn’t go exactly to plan, replacement Josh Bainbridge added another try to his name, and the game was over.

Not easy conditions to play in, and the home team were so dominant in the scrum, and at the line out in the first stanza that the scoreline should have been much bigger. However, no matter how effective the rolling and driving maul, we do not appear to have a reliable plan B. Today was the opportunity to give the backs some free reign and show what they could do. It didn’t happen, and Goss and the Doc stood shivering out on the wing.

It was 5 points, regardless of what Munster got, but the second half display was poor, and defensively we didn’t look too good. Lots for the coaching team to work on, be interesting to see who plays next week, in what effectively, is a dead rubber.