After last weeks cup disappointment at Blackpool, North Manchester were back to winning ways with a comprehensive victory over Leigh at Tudor Lodge. It was a cold, grey afternoon but North had plenty of support from the growing number of members of the club. They were without prop Dave McCarrick and hard-running centre Dave Garvey. This meant that Lee Roberts had to play out of position to fill in for Garvey in the centres. Also Ian Thompson returned from injury to slot into the back row.

The opening exchanges were scrappy with a lot of handling errors from both sides. This meant that neither team could gain an advantage. It took North Manchester’s second row Colin Meredith to break the deadlock in the 10th minute. He picked the ball up from the back of a ruck and dived over the line to give North the lead. Eady converted to extend the lead to seven points.

Lee Roberts extended the scores with a great solo effort as he passed 3 defenders down the right wing to score under the posts. Eady added the easy conversion to make the score 14-0.

North began to dominate the game in all areas of the field. The next score was created by the forwards and finished in the backs. A ruck was set up in the middle of the field and the ball was scooped up by Kevin Green who carried the ball up to the Leigh defence. He then offloaded to Chris Taylor who beat the first line of tacklers and with exceptional vision, looped the pass out to Scott Danby who out-paced the covering defender to score an unconverted try in the corner.

North Manchester spent most of the 1st half in Leigh territory with the best scrimmaging of the season so far. The North scrum was constantly turning over the ball on the opposition scrum. This finally paid off when Leigh won the scrum on their own ball and tried to kick the ball down field. Chris Taylor pressured the kicker and the ball was blocked enabling Luke Corrigan to score the try with his pace and power through the middle of the centre partnership. Eady missed the conversion and the scores were 24-0.

Lee Roberts was having an excellent game at centre. It was he who created the final score of the half for the leaders. He gained possession inside his own half and ran through a gap in the defensive line. Roberts off loaded to leading try scorer Steven Donoghue who raced down the touchline to increase his lead to 3 at the top. The extras were added and the score was 31-0 at half time.

At the change around North Manchester added player coach Andy Donley to the line up who returned from injury to play at scrum half. He was instrumental in the next score by Chris Taylor. Great work by Aaron Duoba down the right wing enabled quick ball from the ruck which allowed Donley to feed John Eady who expertly drew the man to put Chris Taylor into the gap. Taylor could have passed at any time but he remained calm to add another 5 points to his name for the season. Eady added the conversion to make the score 38-0 with 20 minutes left.

Ian Thompson marked his return with the try of the game showing great skill and determination to cross the whitewash. Great running by Chris Hyland from his own half created the space needed to release Thompson into the gap to score from 30 yards out. Eady made the scores 45-0.

It was Thompson again who created the final score of the afternoon for North. He received the ball from the base of a scrum and took the ball down the blind side. He ran at the gap and created an overlap out wide for Paul Gaynord to squeeze down the line to finish a well-worked try in the corner. That left the scores at 50-0 to the home side.

Leigh did not give up. Their persistence paid off when they grabbed a late consolation due to the complacency of the North defence. The conversion was missed and the whistle went to leave the scores at 50-5.

There were many performances to note including Aaron Duoba for his defensive play and Chris Taylor for his controlled aggression all over the park, but the Gala Bingo, North City shopping centre man of the match goes to Lee Roberts for his sharp performance at centre.