The Wasps had the better of the early play but a number of handling errors let them down as moves developed.
They took the lead after a quarter of an hour of play, a moved started on the left saw the runs by Hayley Hodgson, Rowan Boardley and then Amy Orrow who made good ground before offloading the ball to a Lindsey Benzie. Lindsey Benzie gave the scoring pass to Samara Tomlinson, who still had plenty to do, before going over for the touchdown. 5v0
The lead was extended eight minutes later with a Tamar Benson penalty outside of the Leigh 22. 8v0
Leigh came back and pressure on the Kendal line saw them steal a Kendal lineout, and after good build up work, an unconverted try was scored. 8v5
Just before half time Tamar Benson added a second penalty from in front of the sticks. 11v5.
Kendal had a perfect start to the second half. A great bit of skill from Amy Orrow, spotting space on the blindside, saw her calling a late change of direction and received the pass from Fleur Stanton at 9, setting up a rampaging run to the line. The Leigh fullback managed to tap the ankles of Amy Orrow enough to stop her on the 5m. Amy Orrow could’ve gone on herself to score but decided the offload to Fleur Stanton in support was the better option in the time she had to go over for the try, with Tamar Benson adding the difficult conversion with an excellent kick. 18v5
From there on it was mainly Leigh, with their pack cutting off all ball for the Wasps, including stealing ball at a number of lineouts and some scrums. Their pack kept ball in hand, with the ball rarely going out to the backs, but the Kendal defence was solid and rarely seemed threatened, apart from some good runs by the Leigh centre. Sarah Wilkinson put in a number of crunching tackles as always and stopped many attempts from the forwards of Leigh.
Ironically when a Leigh score came it was from a back, and after Kendal had had possession. The ball was turned over by the Wasps just outside the Leigh twenty two, and rather than keep ball in hand, outside half Lauren Harkness, put a kick to the line, but it went too far, and it looked as if Leigh could touchdown for a restart kick, but instead the Leigh wing ran from behind her own posts, evading a number of attempted Wasps tackles. With both Sarah Wilkinson and Hayley Hodgson to beat down the left wing, the odds seemed to be against her, but she managed to do this, to go the length of the field to score. Whilst Hayley Hodgson got back to make the conversion more difficult, this was added to bring Leigh back within a score. 18v12 with just over ten minutes to play.
Leigh continued to have the better of possession, but much of the game was being played in their half, well away from the Kendal line.
The victory was only made safe in injury time, when Kendal won a scrum on the left in the Leigh twenty two. The ball spilled out the back of the scrum, while Cath Sewell struggled to gather the ball, she tapped the ball back to Lauren Harkness who collected the ball and when looking up found Amy Orrow outside of her, who had moved from the back row to the centre, and she found Hayley Hodgson with a brave offload which had to travel some distance in the face of an oncoming defender. Hayley Hodgson, who had had a quiet afternoon compared to previous matches this season, this time made no mistake, to power through for the score. Tamar Benson again added the conversion just seconds before the final whistle blew marking yet another home win for the Wasps who are now on a 3 game unbeaten roll. Final score 25-12.
Players of the match:
Forward - Lindsey Benzie
Back - Tamar Benson
From opposition - Amy Orrow and Tamar Benson
The next league match isn’t until the 4th Nov Away to Broughton Park, however the Wasps have a Cup Match at home to Manchester on sunday 28th October.