On Saturday 11th October the Leicester Tigers Under 19's were victorious against the NEC Harlequins Under 19's 34 - 17 at the Aldershot ground.
It was the home side who started the strongest, clever forward play sucking in the Leicester defence, before the Quins young guns moved the ball wide for debutant winger Ryan Cheal to score in the corner, Mike Brown converting form the touchline 7-0. Shortly afterwards however, Leicester combined to split the Quins defence to score under the posts, converted to make it 7-7. A few moments later Leicester punished a Quins mistake with a further 3 points. The game, evenly matched, moved up and down the field, both sides looking for opportunities to exploit. It was Leicester who found it first, again splitting the Quins defence to register another converted try under the sticks, 7-15. Minutes later, centre Brown converted a touchline penalty to pull Quins back within reach 10-17.
After the break Leicester stretched the lead with a further penalty, before Quins scored another try through replacement winger Dan Owen in a similar fashion to the first half. The game then disappeared into a number of handling errors and mistakes, with both sides missing a number of chances. Leicester again though took the initiative, and crossed the line to stretch the lead to 17-27. Quins, now playing panic catch up football, started to force pass the ball and as a result poor decision making an elementary errors crept into the game, one of these allowing Leicester to take full advantage and seal the win with a final try to finish the game 17-34.
A disappointing day for Quins Under 19's, we must now rebuild for next weeks tough fixture against Bedford.