Leeds Carnegie 34 Plymouth Albion 16: Winning return is soured by pitched battle

For Leeds Carnegie yesterday played the majority of their Championship clash with uncontested scrums after referee Matthew Carley deemed the club’s new £1m pitch had failed to stand up to the customary grunt and grind of the set-piece.

He grew tired of resetting a scrum early on in the match as players struggled for a foothold and ruled it was unsafe so the crowd of 2,084 saw all the usual physicality removed from that crucial area of the game.

It could have all been rather embarrassing for the Yorkshire club in their first game back here having been ‘On the Road’ for the last three months while the fresh turf was being introduced.

However, Leeds head coach Diccon Edwards defended the surface, arguing Plymouth tactics led to the issues while Albion’s first-team coach John Roberts – who had seen his side win penalties from both the opening scrums – set off for the long journey back south completely bemused.

After seeing Leeds secure a bonus-point victory, their first win in five games, Edwards said: “We’ve real confidence in our scrum and certainly in the first 15 minutes felt what their loosehead was doing led to the problems.

“We’re disappointed by what happened and it could have easily been avoidable.

“In the Championship you get developing players. And developing referees.

“We’re very happy with the pitch; it suits the way we want to play – firm, top-of-the-ground stuff.

“If you look at the pitches we played on through December we had a very, very hard one against Bedford at Otley (abandoned due to freezing), played in a bog at Pontypridd and I don’t know how to describe the pitch at Jersey.

“If any might have been unable to scrum on it would have been that as there was a real safety concern there.

“The comparison between that pitch and this here now is huge. We’re certainly not concerned about this surface moving forward.”

Leeds Rhinos had a successful first taste of it in their festive friendly on Boxing Day but union offers a differing challenge.

Head groundsman Jason Booth acknowledges, ideally, it does need longer to bed in and, undoubtedly, eventually, the surface will be one of the best around.

However, all of that did little to appease struggling Plymouth yesterday.

“We had a plan to attack their scrum and from the first two in the game we got two penalties,” said Roberts.

“Then we went to uncontested because the ref told the players it was unsafe.

“It just takes away all the dominance you have.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Our players were fine with it and wanted to carry on scrummaging.

“I’m not sure what will happen next but if the pitch wasn’t good enough to play on, it shouldn’t have been played on.”

There could be an investigation into the handling of the affair but, that aside, you cannot take anything away from the hosts who ruthlessly built an unassailable 27-9 interval lead.

Much of that was down to the controlling influence of England Saxons star Rory Clegg who made an instant impact after joining on loan from Harlequins.

The classy fly-half came straight in, preferred instead of Joe Ford, and fully justified Edwards’s decision. His swift and accurate passing was telling, proving crucial in Leeds’s opening two tries when his vision split Plymouth both times.

First, it was Clegg’s long pass which gave winger Matt Clark just enough space to get on the outside of his opponent. He, in turn, found lock Dominic Barrow who showed impressive acceleration to narrowly make the line at the corner and secure his first try.

Clegg expertly converted the 24th-minute score from the touchline and did so again soon after having directed another excellent pass for Fred Burdon to feed David Doherty.

When Plymouth full-back Rhodri McAtee imploded in the 32nd minute, messing up Leeds’s hacked kick forward, centre Josh Griffin capitalised to score only his second try since joining from Castleford Tigers and the damage was done. Clegg converted and added a penalty to put Leeds in 27-9 ahead, Plymouth’s only scores coming from three Paul Roberts penalties.

The home side defended manfully with no further scoring until Barrow was sin-binned in the 75th minute for preventing Plymouth from taking a quick tap. From there, No 8 Aaron Carpenter surged over from the back of a scrum for a soft try which Roberts improved but impressive captain Jacob Rowan did likewise for Leeds in injury-time to deservedly clinch them a bonus point.

Clegg – on his 23rd birthday – converted to maintain his 100 per cent record and send his new side back up to fourth place but all the post-match talk was of something entirely different.

Leeds Carnegie: McColl; Clark, Griffin, Burdon, D Doherty; Clegg, J Doherty (Hampson 60); Lockwood, Nilsen (Graham 54), Hooper (Harris 54), Green, Barrow, Baldwin (Walker 60), Rowan, Burrows.

Plymouth Albion: McAtee (Arnott 47); Bailey, Howley-Berridge, Fisilau (Armitage 62), Bowen; Roberts, Cushion; Cowan-Dickie (Fairbrother 75), Vickers, Morton (Rogers 67), Beukeboom, Nasiga (Tovey 63), Stephen, Matavesi (Sprangle 62), Carpenter.

Referee: M Carley (RFU).