Longhorns convince against Bobcats

Lanarkshire Longhorns travelled down to Leeds on Sunday, hoping to turn their fortunes around after a narrow defeat by a score at Gateshead last weekend.

They weren’t disappointed, coming away with a convincing 37 – 0 win under their belts and consolidating their 2nd place position in the BAFANL Junior North Division. Leeds Varsity Bobcats provided a committed performance, but with a significant proportion of new and inexperienced players this season, they found the going tough against the Lanarkshire side.

Leeds’ defence got off to a flying start recovering a Longhorns fumble on the away team’s first possession and a pair of QB sacks on consecutive series thereafter. Chris Jones recovered a fumble for the Longhorns in return but after a first quarter of defences testing each other out the game moved into the second with no score.

Andy Reid got the scoring underway midway through the second quarter with a rushing TD and PAT to give Lanarkshire a 7 point advantage. Jones soon added to this with a Safety after the Bobcats were backed into their own endzone, and Nicky Farrell pulled off a repeat of last year’s performance with a 70 yard TD return from the resultant kick-off. Defensive captain, William McLaughlin led the way assisted well by Matt McCallum and Steven Mooney to make sure the Bobcats made no further progress on their next possession bringing the first half to a close at 16 – 0 in favour of the Longhorns.

Leeds managed only one first down in the third quarter whilst Lanarkshire replied with another rushing TD, this time from Jonathan McKillop, and had a further 2 trips to the endzone called back for penalty calls. After continued defensive pressure featuring consistent tackling from Mark McCallum and Craig Samuel, McKillop again stepped up and returned a pass interception to the Bobcats 5 yard line, setting up Farrell for his second rushing score of the day. McKillop completed the fourth quarter with a second interception which he returned 18 yards for his second score, finished off by Reid’s 5th PAT conversion of the game to leave the final score at 37 – 0.

The Longhorns now face a stiff challenge in their next home game on the 3rd June versus Lancashire Wolverines Colts. Having never achieved a win in their previous 3 encounters the Longhorns will be looking to turn that around in what promises to be an action packed match-up.