The team knew before setting out for Sunny Leigh that today's opponents were about as tough as they come in u8s rugby after our terrific match at the end of last season.

Defensively soap came out of the blocks too slow against a very tough and composed Leigh East side who dominated the early exchanges. East went 2 tries up in quarter 1 and both tries were a little special, the first saw easts crafty little half back drop one of Easts big lads back on the inside and the defenders couldn't stop him, the second was a carbon copy of the firsts except for this time the defenders reacted to the big lad so the half dummied and went through a big hole. The first quarter ended 2 v 0 to the home side.

East were on the score sheet first in the second quarter before Finn Hammill bagged soaps first followed by Sam busting over in the corner twice interspersed with 3 more tries from the home side. 2nd Quarter ended with the soap 6 v 3 down.

Defensively in quarter 3 soap started to get into the game and had begun to work out how to defend Easts attacking options, working them out and stopping them, however, were 2 slightly different things as east scored a further 3 tries interspersed with a good finish down the edge from Joseph Gough.

In the final quarter, these young soap stars really got to grips with Leighs fantastic play and defended heroically to shut Leigh out and a great finish from the hot footed Fin left soap defeated 9 v 5 but having learnt a great deal.

Spencer Buller was heroic in defence throughout constantly taking knocks and bouncing back like tigger which won him the Man of the Match, Josh Ackerley took the Top Tackler award and Nathan picked up the coaches award for a much-improved effort in defense though honestly any of the other players could have walked away with that award on this performance.

Next game will see Chester visit us at Home.