Leigh Miners Rangers 12 Leigh East 44
Miners were send down to a humbling defeat by their red-hot local rivals in scorching conditions at Twist Lane to leave them with a real battle to grab a top three place in Pool A. It was the Miners heaviest home league defeat in five years and coming at the hands of their biggest adversaries was a bitter pill to swallow. In truth it was no more than either side deserved as East were electrifying at times, particularly in a first twenty minutes when they ran riot to rack up 22 unanswered points, inspired by eventual hat-trick star Danny Kilshaw and Jono Smith as the broadsword to his rapier.
Miners had opened marginally the brighter but once the breakthrough for East came from a fine Kilshaw pass putting Mark Kay in at the corner the tries became a procession. Kilshaw sent Smith charging under the posts and then decided to get on the scoreboard himself, his first a break from halfway and weaving his way through for a fine solo effort, his second again all his own work but from closer range. Miners were utterly shellshocked but managed to claw a score back, Darryl Kay and Adam Thomason combining from half way to send Ryan Smith in for a six pointer, but with Gary Greenough and Mick Whiteside revelling the the combat against their former club it was East who had the hefty margin reinforced by the interval as Nicky Ratcliffe, only recently departed Miners’ under-18s, finished off more fine play by Kilshaw and a pass flipped off the deck by Smith.
Miners needed the first score of the second half to have any hope of a revival but instead East simply extended their advantage, forcing a scrum near the Miners line and Chris Penn in at the left corner from quick handling. The home side mustered a second score as hard-working Steve Kenny broke down the middle and put Scott O’Brien away for the try, and when the tireless Kieran Dainty, head and shoulders the home side’s best player on the day, had a try disallowed for forward pass the floodgates appeared to be stemmed. Kilshaw though forced them open again, a sublime try as he chipped over the defensive line and dived through to gather and touch down. Lyndon Robertson had the last word, bursting through to score under the posts.
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