It wasn’t just the weather that saw National 1 league strugglers have a dark day. The Tykes were heavily beaten by a Cambridge team who could still win the league. With that result, the Leeds side failed in their quest to stay up, although they went down fighting.
Cambridge’s Ben Brownlie scored the first of his side’s eleven tries after three minutes. Brownlie went on to score his second minutes later. Before the half hour mark, another three followed: Antony Maka helped himself to two either side of Tom Hoppe’s effort. All were converted by Steffan James, four of the tries came from drives; either from lineouts or scrums.
Tykes were able to weather the storm somewhat, managing to get some possession and put a series of phases together. They got on the board just before the break with a try in the corner from Tighe Maxwell-Whiteley.
35-5 at half-time.
Any hopes of a Tykes’ comeback were dashed early after the break, when Kwaku Asiedu scored the first of his three. Brownlie celebrated his hat-trick after 50 minutes.
Leeds started to keep hold of the ball, squared up in the scrum and disrupted the home side’s lineout. It wasn’t to be. Errors crept in and Cambridge’s powerful pack’s experience told.
The away side’s task became harder as they played much of the thirty minutes of the match at least one man down as they were shown four yellow cards.
A penalty try preceded Asiedu’s second and third tries. William Priestley scored his side’s eleventh try.
It would have been easy for the Tykes to give up. They didn’t. Matt Burke drove over in the final move of the game.
75 – 10
(HT 35-5)
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