Bathed in autumn sunlight and on the verdant pasture of the moorefields 1st team pitch Leamington kicked off their delayed season on Saturday and in truth they will wish it was delayed by a further 40 minutes as a quality Evesham XV were lightning fast out of the blocks scoring after some good interplay after just 6 minutes, this also turned out to be the last action of the day for big John Brear who had picked up a shoulder injury leaving Leamington to a little light on ball carrying in the forwards.
It was Leamington who threatened next with forwards and back working well together to push Evesham back and and force them to concede a string of penalties when one was offered in range Leams accepted the offer of 3 points but the effort just drifted wide.
As the second quarter started aggressive defence forced Leam in to a handling error and from the resulting scrum a direct run breached the defences and added 5 more points for Evesham.
More strong running and good handling saw Evesham extend their lead and claim a bonus point by half time going in to the huddle 26-0 ahead.
Leamington’s defence had not missed many tackles but Evesham had consistently managed to find an offload at the line to put them through.

The break saw Leamington lose fly half Brad James to injury and as everyone was getting their bearings in the rejigged back line another try was conceded. Leamington were unbowed by the intimidating task facing them and forced a period of sustained pressure in the opposition 22 and strong carries from Shuttleworth and the forwards and lightning quick ball from Ben Parsons gave replacement 10 Chris John opportunity to pull the strings with the back line and after dents made by Jim Reed, Logan Deely and Ethan Roberts Freddie Spencer was left with one man to beat which he did to put Leamington on the scoreboard. Unfortunately this coincided with a rather unsavoury scuffle amongst the forwards which left captain Kinghorn with a cut above the eye which would stop a championship boxing match and certainly ended his afternoon.

Shortly after this Leamington revival Jim Reed was also lost to injury and out of subs they were forced to play with 14 and against a side with the wind in their sails they conceded 2 more scores. To put a slightly unfair look on the final score.

There was no lack of industry or effort from the lads but on a day when every pass and tackle seemed to stick for the opposition and key injuries came at critical times damaged the team it was just not our day.

No doubt another solid week of training and some patching up in the Moorefields field hospital will see the boys ready to face local rivals Stratford on Saturday.

Pictures by Pinfold
Words by Chandler unaided by ChatGPT this week