3:48pm Thursday 29th April 2010
Leigh East 16 Halton Simms Cross 10
LEIGH East will play in the BARLA National Cup Final for the first time in their history.
Mick Fishwick’s men, crowned National Conference Premier Division champions after their midweek 42-6 win at Wigan St Judes, edged past North West Counties Premier Division leaders and Lancashire Cup holders Halton Simms Cross in Saturday’s entertaining semi final.
East will go on to meet Yorkshire League champions Queens in the final at Fylde Rugby Union Ground on May 22 after they saw off the challenge of Normanton Knights in the other semi final.
Simmies took an 8-0 lead with a try from hooker Steve McDermott and two goals from Ryan Millington.
East pulled back to within two points on 27 minutes after a long pass from Ryan Peters found John Taylor, who turned the ball back inside to Carl Redford to wrong-foot the sliding defence to score. Ryan Peters converted.
A penalty by Peters on the stroke of half time took the teams in level at 8-8.
A further penalty by Peters two minutes after the restart gave East the lead for the first time.
Both defences were tested to the full before Danny Kilshaw finally broke the line from inside the East half. He delivered a perfect ball on the halfway line to right wing Andrew Groves, who outpaced the opposition backs down the line before drawing the full back and turning the ball inside for Redford to cross for the deciding try of the game.
Peters added the conversion to give East an eight-point lead with 30 minutes remaining.
Another Millington penalty on the hour pulled the difference back to six points, setting up a frantic final 20 minutes where both defences stood strong.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.leighjournal.co.uk/trade_directory/