Ince Rose Bridge (Home)
Leigh Miners return to action following the Easter break on Saturday when they take on local rivals Ince Rose Bridge in Round 4 of the Kingstone Press Cider National Conference League Division One season at Twist Lane.
The Kick off is at the later time of 5-15pm due to the game now being shown Live on the FreeSportsUK TV channel as part of the weekly National Conference League coverage that Alex Simmons and the RugbyAM team provide.
You can find the FreeSports channel on
Sky channel – 424
Freeview channel – 95
Freesat channel – 252
TalkTalk Tv channel – 95
BT channel – 95
Miners go into this weekends local derby looking to bounce back from a disappointing 30-16 home defeat against a tough Featherstone Lions outfit a fortnight ago, after starting the game brightly and leading 16-6 to many errors let the Lions back in the game at the back end of the first half and from that the visitors never looked back as they produced a strong second half performance, keeping Miners pinned in there own half for the majority of the second period to win 30-16.
This week will again no doubt be a very tough game against a fired up Rose Bridge outfit, with all the lads selected to play knowing that they need to toughen up in defence and have far better respect with ball in hand if they are to get back to winning ways ahead of two tricky away games at Lock Lane and Thornhill.
Coach Dave Rowlands makes four changes from the side that lost to Featherstone Lions the other week, with Louie Brogan, Todd Fenlon, Martin Gray and Josh Ward replacing Matt Astley, Calum Coleman, Adam Thomason and Mark Thomas in the seventeen.
Looking back on the game against Featherstone Lions a couple of weeks ago, coach Dave Rowlands said “The Featherstone game was a very frustrating performance for us but you can’t take nothing away from Fev because they managed the game a lot better than us and that’s why they got the two points.”
“I thought we looking really good with ball in hand in the opening twenty minutes but we let them get back into the game with a couple of soft tries, and went away from what was working for us up until that point .”
“In the second half we completed at around 40% with them up near the 85% mark.”
“With the size of there pack if you give a team like that to much ball in your own half, they will punish you, which they did.”
On this weekends derby game against Rose Bridge, Rowlands added “I can’t recall any games against Ince ever being easy, they always turn up to play against us and are very well coached.”
“We are going to have to be at our best to beat them and with a bit of luck the weather will hold up so both teams can serve a decent game of rugby in front of the tv cameras.”
“All the boys are looking forward to the game being on Tv and I think it’s great exposure for our club and people involved in it.”
“Hopefully we can showcase how good of a team we really are and skipper Darryl Kay says he has been on salads all week to look nice and slim for them wide screen cameras.”
Ince Rose Bridge make the short journey across the borough on the back of two home league defeats against Shaw Cross Sharks (18-12) and Milford Marlins (28-16) so far this season, with having the Easter break to regroup ahead of this weeks game the men from Pinfold Street will see no better time to kick start there season with a local derby win In front of the television cameras.
Leigh Miners second team are away for the fourth game on the trot on Saturday when they play Latchford Albion in the league (NWML Division 1), kick off 3pm at Victoria Park Arena.
The u18s will be looking to keep there unbeaten start to the season intact on Sunday when they travel across the borough to take on Ince Rose Bridge in the Lancashire Cup, Kick off 12-30pm at Pinfold Street.
Leigh Miners u12s & u14s girls teams are both at home against Thatto Heath on Saturday morning, kick offs 10:00am and 11:15am respectively at the Junior section on Manchester Road.
