Longlevens RFC

Longlevens put the disappointment of a midweek Combination Cup defeat at Matson behind them this Saturday with an impressive victory away at Ledbury in the Papa Johns cup.

The game started with a bang and the Griffins were on the scoresheet after two minutes. From receiving the kick off the ball was moved slickly through the hands to Jake Fox who made good yards up the right touchline. Fast phases were created right to left that stretched the defence and allowed Fly half James Butler the chance to pick off Mike Yorke with a nice inside pass to send the winger under the posts, 0-7.

Longlevens then began to fall foul of the referees whistle and the resulting pressure meant Ledbury went over the whitewash for an unconverted score, 5-7. They followed this up with a three pointer to briefly take the lead, 8-7.

The Griffins then began to put some great phases together, utilising the game plan well. They went from 22 to 22 with the ball in hand and eventually found themselves with a useful ruck under the posts. The ball found its way to Jack Cuthbert and he used his bulk to bounce off would be tacklers, 8-14.

The second half started the same as the first and an outstanding 50-22 from full back Harry Atkinson to set up a driving line out 5 metres from the line. Cuthbert was again on hand to finish off, taking the score to 8-21.

Five minutes later a further score was added through Steve Phillips, who crashed over from short-range following good approach play from the forwards, 8-28.

The game felt like it was in the bag and all Longlevens needed to do was control proceedings. Ledbury had other ideas and went through the gears to score three unanswered tries, two crucially unconverted to make the score a much closer 25-28. Within this period the Griffins conceded two yellow cards and had to contend with numerous injuries, upsetting the balance of the game and allowing Ledbury to capitalise.

The boot of Brad Wilkins settled things down a bit with the sensible decision to slot two penalties between the posts, 25-34.

Ledbury weren’t finished yet and bagged a last try of their own to make the last few minutes a tense affair, however the Griffins held out and recorded a great 30-34 victory.

This victory has reignited the enthusiasm after a rather difficult end to the season. Longlevens will now have a home tie against Swanage & Wareham RFC on Saturday to look forward to, with the second team travelling to Brockworth in the Combo Cup on Wednesday.