LEIGH travelled to Lancaster, to face Vale of Lune with high hopes of a victory following last week’s fine win at home against West Park, with both sides having only two victories to their names before yesterday’s encounter. Alas, it was not to be and Leigh came away second best, losing 29 – 18.

It was Vale who were the first to trouble the scorers, when they scored an unconverted try from a well rehearsed line out move, after two minutes of play, to catch Leigh on the hop. Leigh, however, were quick to respond to this, on ten minutes, when a quick tap by energetic scrum half, Kieran Duffy, resulted in a penalty being awarded to Leigh, which was readily converted by the boot of Elliot Ryan.

This was the start of a purple patch for Leigh and after several successful forays into Vale territory, Leigh produced a telling break through Rob Drake, who got the team onto the front foot, with Prop Wayne McCabe, successfully linking with the spritely Jimmy Wilkinson, for Jimmy to dart through a hole, before feeding the supporting Elliott Ryan, who scored wide out on the left for a try which was unconverted.

Vale were quick to bounce back almost from the restart, to score a try under the Leigh posts but good work by Ollie Shepherd limited their riposte to five points when he brilliantly charged down their conversion attempt. Vale 10 Leigh 8.

This gave Leigh inspiration and they took the game back to the hosts to score a try, from a driving maul, wide out on the right, through Captain Iain Wood, who managed to burrow his way through the Vale defence.

Elliott Ryan was unlucky with his conversion attempt from near the touchline.

Half Time was Vale 10 Leigh 13.

Leigh maintained their pressure in the early part of the second half and good hands along the back line got the ball out wide to Ollie Shepherd, who stepped and accelerated his way past the Vale defensive wall to score wide out on the right for a brilliant but unconverted finish.

Hopes were now high and the Leigh travelling support could sense a victory but Vale regrouped and scored two tries, one converted, within five minutes of each other, to recapture the lead to make the score 22 – 18 with twenty minutes to go.

Leigh worked hard for this last quarter but just could not get the points on the board and it was Vale who sealed their victory in the dying minutes when they were awarded a penalty try, which was converted, to take the teams off with the scoreline Vale of Lune 29 Leigh 18.

This was another encouraging performance from all of the Leigh squad with Kieran Duffy, Glenn Stephens, Wayne McCabe, Marcus Morris-Williams and Rob Drake especially catching the eye.

Next week, Leigh entertain fellow strugglers Rochdale, at Round Ash Park, in what should be an interesting contest with both sides on 9 points