Following a week during which Belper suffered defeat in the cup, the league was hoped to be a place of recovery, but as has happened in the last few seasons Belper let themselves down.

Again Belper fielded a young side with Adams and Blackwell being the elder statesmen at the ripe old age of 27.

Belper began brightly moving the ball well in hand and with a changed back line seemed to have the run of the game, but as silly mistakes, poor passing and bad catching from the centres and wings led to chances not being converted all Belper could take from the first half was a good display from their forwards, who doggedly worked hard around the park tackling and covering the mistakes made in the back line.

Belper had taken the lead early on with Blount slotting a penalty from under the posts, Belper then had to defend against the much larger forwards of Leesbrooke who kept the ball tight, with Dakin and Inns putting big hits in. Following a penalty in the visitor's own half they managed to kick down into Belper's 22 and win their line-out, leading to a maul which was dropped by Belper, but from the resulting penalty a quick tap was taken and Leesbrooke dropped over the line to take the lead.

Things got worse as Belper went looking for a reply. The ball was moved from Lyon to Lewis who passed the ball late and it was intercepted by the Leesbrooke winger who sprinted in from his own half to score under the posts and give Leesbrooke a 14-3 lead.

At half time Belper's coach Boyd tried to instill some words of encouragement and a couple of home truths,

Belper looked to run at Leesbrooke in the second half, with Blake and Coombes knocking holes in the defensive line but with a much changed back line the cohesion wasnt quite there so balls kept going to ground or players had to take the ball into contact.

Leesbrooke extended their lead with a well worked try following some missed tackles from Belper.

Boyd changed things around with Lewis and Bull'et replaced by Holmes and Hayward, within minutes of coming on Holmes was bashing holes in the visitor's defence and the ball was being moved wide to Coombes who was making excellnt ground on the wing. Belper scored their first try with Naylor spinning wide to Lyon who fed Coombes, who in turn popped the ball out to Hayward who crashed in at the corner with his opposite number flying in with his boots, thus giving the ref no option but to sin bin him.

Belper started to dominate with the ball shifting from wing to wing and it was Hayward again who popped up to take a pass on the wing and crash over, this time another Leesbrooke player flying in with a cheap shot and getting sin binned, this was all too little too late with Leesbrooke taking the game 19-15 and leaving Belper to regroup for next week's challenge of an away trip to Melbourne, one of the leagues favourites for promotion