Sat 11 Dec 2021
Longlevens eight game winning streak came to an abrupt end on Saturday with this heavy loss to league leaders Clifton.
A combination of a lack of self-belief and uncharacteristic errors contributed to a collective poor performance against a decent national league second team.
The game started positively enough with Levens demonstrating dominance in the scrum, but errors began to creep in that haven’t been apparent all season. Balls were dropped, kicks missed touch, and some poor decisions were being made.
Clifton scored five first half tries, mostly capitalising on Levens mistakes, but all were well taken. The only scoring contribution made by Longlevens was a Wilkins penalty on 13 minutes. Try Number one came from their 10 darting through a gap, he was held up short but from a quick tap and go penalty they were able to crash over 5-3.
The second try was a similar story, a series of penalties in the Levens 22 enabled Clifton to get a tap and go and go over again to make it 12-3. Levens then managed to get a foothold back in the game and applied pressure in the Clifton 22. A penalty to the corner set up a line out that was going to be driven, but the throw was rushed and the ball lost. Within a split second the ball was kicked to the Levens 22 and Clifton created another try, 19-3.
Straight from the resulting kick off the ball was caught and moved to the Clifton right wing, who broke three or four tackles to go over for number four, 26-3. Then on the stroke of half time a kick through allowed the left wing to outpace the defence to score in the corner, 31-3.
A shell shocked team listened to the half time advice of the coaches, and to their credit started the second half with more about them. Brad Wilkins was able to take a quick tap penalty and dive over for a converted try, 31-10, and a comeback was on the cards. With phases now being strung together Levens were able to get a foothold in the 22. Number 8 Steve Philips powered his way over the line, only to be held up. With the change in the laws, rather than a scrum being awarded, a goal line drop out was the option. This was caught by Sykes, but he was tackled into touch, and from the lineout Clifton broke free and scored through their pacey left winger, 38-10.
With the game now gone Levens began to drop off again, and Clifton scored two more tries, with only one more from Levens in response, a catch and drive effort from Tom Denby, making the final score 52-15.
Although a disappointing result, the season is very much still on, with promotion still the number one target. Next week sees the visit of Coney Hill and hopefully back to winning ways.
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