With the Christmas hangovers well and truly cleared the Crusaders looked more than ready to take on Leos 3rds. With an experienced starting 15 and a strong bench Captain Warburton gave a rousing team talk that got the men fired up.

In the bright winter sun, the referee Rob Staint got the game got underway, Unfortunately from the kick off Leos ran in an easy try relatively unopposed which was a real wake up call. However with typical Crusaders resolve they bounced back with a really good penetrating run from Oli Robertson up to the Leos 22 and an offload to the steam-train-like Levi who easily breached the Leos defence.

Wetherby dominated much of the remainder of the first half culminating in another great try from Levi making the score 10-7 to Wetherby at half time.

The second half was a lively affair, Levi running in another try after a great move by the backs feeding him to take on the Leos wingers and beating them to touch down under the posts. 17-7 to Wetherby.

With 13 minutes to go the match threatened to boil over after Andy Hewitt tried to encourage a Leos player to release the ball on the ground.

As the game drew to a close Leos broke through to score and converted a straight forward kick to make the scores 17-14 to Wetheby. As the clock ran down and the sun slowly set behind the trees in Alwoodley, Wetherby were still looking relatively comfortable, the away supporters expecting to go away with a win, however a frantic last 5 minutes saw Leos score twice in relatively close succession leaving Wetherby staring down the jaws of defeat.

In the true spirit of what it means to be a Crusader they valiantly fought back and scored in the corner to bring the result to within a conversion - 24-22 to Leos. Up stepped Rory Foulks who launched a great kick which marginally missed to the right.

Over all a great game, handled very well by a clearly experienced referee. Levi was 'subbed' twice on recommendation of the referee, Captain Warburton came off with an eye injury giving Big John Dobson his opportunity to impress, Dave Harrison dislocated a finger but popped it back in before he had time to think about it and someone lost a contact lens.

All retired to the bar afterwards rueing what could have been.