August 16, 2008 : Lions vs Providence

LIONS 11 – PROVIDENCE 8

The Lions long trip to Providence reaped rewards with a hard-fought winning serving as a perfect start to the Fall season.

The first half saw the Lions defending wave after wave of Providence attack as they saw all the ball and field position. They managed to cross once out wide after sustained pressure led to an overload. A missed conversion saw Providence take a 5-0 lead to the break.

The highlight of the first half for the Lions came when a Providence breakaway came to an end at halfway with Sleeves putting a HUGE hit on their 10. Sleeves came from nowhere to iron out their flyhalf with a full body shot, showing the benefits of Kallman’s Wednesday Workouts. Not only was it a great hit, it also left their 10 down a rattled and showed the strength of the Lions pack.

At the break Adrian told us he was proud of our first half effort and it was time to go out and win it. The Lions improved fitness was noticeable at halftime with few of the boys breathing hard and the only change was a positional change with Neil moving into flyhalf and Young shifting to the Wing.

The Second Half saw more ball for the Lions thanks to the Forwards winning great lineout ball and dominating the big Providence forward pack. Adrian made a good move introducing new flyhalf Bobby midway through the half. Bobby quickly capitalized on the strong work of the Forward pack charging over next to the posts from close range. A missed conversion followed to leave the scores tied at 5-5 with about 20 minutes to go.

Back and forth rugby followed with a Lions penalty goal putting us in the lead briefly before Providence added their own penalty to leave the game tied up at 8 points a piece.

With 10 minutes to go the Lions really came into their own as our superior fitness started to show. Alex Kallman, who was all over the park as per usual, charged through a gap but got pulled down at the 22 before he could pop the ball to Adil in support. Our inspirational skipper Pat McJury also made a long break from our half but again the Providence fullback managed to put a stop to a potential game winning raid as an inside ball to McHale hit the deck.

The Lions won’t to be stopped though as a final relentless charge down the field finished with a penalty in front of the posts that Bobby calmly potted after the siren for an 11-8 victory.

LIONS 11 (Bobby Try, 2 Penalties) defeated Providence 8 (try, penalty)

Our Players Player Award went to new boy Tyler in his last game before returning to college (we look forward to your return mate) who defended strongly and had their outside backs scared of him after time and again running over and through the players in front of him.

Tyler just beat out Sleeves for MoM and Adrian also called out the performance of Alex Kallman for a ‘coaches award’ ahead of our new second row combination of Kimani and Sleeves – these boys were everywhere.

Our tight five was exceptional on the day, led from the front by Gunner and Trezza who helped pick apart their lineout and dominate their scrum. McJury steered us around the pack strongly from half while the return of Neil Champ boosted our backline. New boy Will excelled in his first 15′s game and picked up the B side MoM performance on the back of a great try and a few other solid breaks.

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