Rochdale Hornets 36, Leigh Centurions 4

ARE chinks starting to appear in Leigh Centurions' armour?

That's the question being asked after Leigh collapsed to their heaviest defeat for almost three years writes Mike Hulme

Perhaps the cracks started to appear the previous week when they scraped a late win at Workington. Yesterday those cracks were blown wide open by an impressive Hornets side.

Although Leigh only trailed 6-4 at half time, they fell apart after the break as their defence, the best in the NFP, leaked six tries in all.

Their ball control, particularly among the forwards, was poor and it was one of those days when every little error was punished.

Hornets, pushing strongly for a top four finish, were the better side all across the park with Danny Sculthorpe, Latham Tawhai and Dave Watson pulling the strings.

Even coach Paul Terzis had to admit: "They smashed us."

But the Leigh boss promised better times lie ahead. "Our players will bounce back from this, we're too good a side not to. This tests our character and what we're all about.

"We'll come out of this a far better side for the experience," he added.

Hornets' 11th successive League win at Spotland was started as early as the sixth minute when Tawhai's bomb to the corner floated over Alan Hadcroft's head and into the welcome arms of Marlon Billy who scored easily at the flag.

Leigh responded almost immediately with Hadcroft having tries disallowed in quick succession, one for a foot in touch, the other for a forward pass.

Leigh did manage to draw level on the half hour when Phil Kendrick broke Warren Ayres' tackle and burst through for a try.

Despite some solid work from Dave Bradbury, Leigh couldn't make their spell of pressure pay off and when Kendrick gave away an injury time penalty, Danny Wood thumped over the two pointer.

Leigh were in trouble within two minutes of the re-start when sub Darren Robinson scored from close in. But it was two tries in four minutes from Matt Calland that gave Hornets a commanding 18-point lead.

A runaround between Tawhai and Joe Berry ended with Wood slicing through to score and in the last minute another sub, Wayne McHugh, hacked through when another Leigh pass went to ground and followed up to score.