Sheffield Eagles Women's Red side start league campaign with defeat

Things didn’t start well for the Eagles with second rower Lauren Exley forced off with a wrist injury after defending Leigh’s first attack of the game, but it was Sheffield who did lead early on following tries from Agnes Wood after only four minutes, which was followed up by a Tori Thomas conversion, before Izzy Brennan extended the lead to 0-10 after making a great break from deep-field position.

Regrettably having built a solid lead, the Eagles then failed to field the kick off, allowing the ball to dribble its way dead. The drop-out didn’t gain much ground and four plays later, Leigh’s Young forced her way over in the tackle in the 16th minute to score their first points of the afternoon.

The hosts scored again in the 19th minute through right winger Blackwood, who crashed over in the corner to score Leigh's second try of the day.

A smart cross-field kick to the right found the in-goal area for Leigh right centre Melvin to dive on in the 22nd minute putting the hosts into the lead. After missing the first two conversions, Melvin then stepped up to convert her own try, taking Leigh into a 14-10 lead.

On the half-hour mark, Sheffield sent the ball through four pairs of hands and produced a quick offload to centre Chevelle Clarke, who found her way over to score after pulling off a tricky side-step, before the conversion narrowly missed the target as the scores were level at 14-14.

But the hosts went back ahead only a minute later as centre Young scored a try over on the left edge, ensuring Leigh led 18-14 at the break.

After a hard-fought first half encounter between the two sides, it was the hosts who secured victory in the second half following five further tries from Young (2), Howard, Cobain and Dogus, with the addition of two Melvin conversions to round off a 42-14 victory for the Leopards.