Crusaders battle to victory.
On cold and windy December afternoon the crusaders were set to face a tough test against Wheatley Hills 2nd team,
The game kicked off with Wheatley hills having the wind and with the sun in their eyes the crusaders were under immediate sustained pressure. The heroic defence took a huge battering for twenty minutes, but the scores remained 0-0. Then a great clearance kick from Andy Gillighan, was chased down by Nathan Leonhardt who tackled the opposition winger, the resulting ruck led to a line out deep in the opposition half, a great line out led to scrum half for the day Harry Kaye get fast ball out, and in the blink of an eye it was with inside centre Tom Hamilton who powered his way through the Wheatley defence to score just wide of the posts. 5-0 crusaders.
Yet again the crusaders were under immediate hard pressure from the Wheatley restart. They were powerful in attack with their man of match prop proving to be a tough customer to stop. They eventually went over the line, and scored a controversial try as french star victor looked to have held them up.
With the conversion kicked it was 7-5 at the end of the first half.
The second half started with crusaders applying the pressure, but some great Wheatley defence held firm. The match was in the balance and penalties were putting pressure on the crusaders.
Some great play in the Wetherby 22 led to a penalty against the crusaders 5m out, and Wheatley decided to go for the posts and scored. 10-5 Wheatley.
Buoyed by the fact that Wheatley went for goal and didn't think they could dent the crusaders defence we immediately went on the attack. The forwards were attacking with force, and man of the match Freddie Oxland back from uni was smashing hits in and all front eight were in the thick of it when we got a scrum in the opposition 10m area, a huge drive a perfectly timed wheel and Marcus Little powered over unopposed to score. Andy Gillighan did the honours 12-10 crusaders. This was followed by a fraught 20 minutes, with the crusaders down to 14 for ten of them. Absolutely fantastic tackling and a great team attitude led to the crusaders holding out for the win.
