Crewe & Nantwich 1sts beat Leighton Buzzard to clinch a spot in the quarter finals of the Papa John’s Cup.
In the first fixture on record between the two clubs, Crewe edged a close battle 34-26 on the road.
Crewe started the brighter of the two sides, with Logan Lynch knocking over a simple three points to begin with, 0-3.
Crewe fumbled several tries from poor handling and failing to execute line breaks.
Unfortunately, one of those mistakes allowed the Leighton winger to run 60m to score their first try to take the lead 7-3.
A period of pressure from Crewe resulted in a penalty which was kicked by Lynch.
Some good play from the Leighton Buzzard scrum half saw him place an accurate chip for the flyhalf to collect and score a try to make it 14-6 to the home side.
Crewe’s forwards then provided some good front foot ball and nice interplay through the middle allowed Tom Manaton to score a try to narrow the gap to 14-13 at half time.
Crewe now had the slope and wind at their backs for the second half.
However, it started badly as a charged down kick allowed Leighton to run through and score try to extend their lead to 21-13.
Crewe fought back to score next when Olly Joyce dotted down from a cross field kick to narrow the gap to a single point.
The sides continued to swap scores and Leighton Buzzard scored the next try with some good play wrapping round the corner,
26-20.
Crewe then managed to assert some scrum dominance and as the ball spilled out the Leighton Buzzard scrum Jacob Aston O’Donovan eventually got his hands on the ball to score a try and give Crewe the lead at 26-27.
With 10 minutes to go, Crewe eventually strung some phases together without making a mistake before Joe Gammage scored to the left of the sticks to clinch a fine victory 26-34.
They will find out later this week who they face in the quarter final of the Papa John’s Cup.
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