News

Classic All Blacks score debut win

May 26 2008

The Classic All Blacks put a young Leicester team to the sword 41-26 at Welford Road on Sunday, the CABs' first-ever appearance on English soil.

The CABs ran in seven tries despite the Tigers' best efforts, opening the scoring after two minutes through Troy Flavell.

Carlos Spencer, his usual effervescent self at fly-half, opened up the Leicester defence for flanker Josh Blackie to run in the second try after 25 minutes, with Leicester repelling several attacks beforehand.

Lome Fa'atau's 70m burst put the CABs 17-0 ahead shortly after, but then Leicester struck back through flanker Gregor Gillanders' opportunist score.

But there was little respite for the Tigers team, with hooker Slade McFarland and Filo Tiatia both dotting down, and neither converting - it was a feature of the CAB game that each tryscorer was invited to convert his own try.

Gillanders was held up over the line in the second half, but then a sweeping move involving Frank Murphy, Matt Cornwell and Ben Youngs gave Dan Hemingway a try.

Justin Marshall scored a sixth for the CABs, this one converted by Roger Randle with fifteen minutes to go.

Replacement wing Will Hurrell then got on the end of a break from Murphy and Cornwell to outpace the covering defence and score in the left-hand corner, but the Classics were not on the back foot for long as Randle scythed through the Tigers defence to grab a try which lock Flavell gratefully converted from in front of the posts to make it 19-41.

The home crowd had more to cheer entering the final five minutes as a strong driving maul was pulled down on the Classics' try-line and referee Ashley Rowden awarded a penalty try. Frank Murphy converted to bring the scoring to a close.