1st half

Folly Lane won the toss and elected to allow the Lions first posession, this is our usual tactic so it was interesting to see how we reacted, and in fairness to us, we did well. Straight from the off we ran hard and good lines at the Folly defence and tested them during every hit up so it came as no real suprise when Thomas took the ball on tackle 5 and crashed over to open the scoring, 1 - 0 to the Lions. During Folly Lanes first set some bad individual decisions let them down early and put them once more on the back foot with their own posession leaving the Lions in great field position for the start of their next attack. Once again things were looking peachy with more solid runing from the Lions attack with great passing on display, with Ben G-R being the player who eventually weaved his way over to put the Lions 2 ahead and the game still young. Now Folly Lane steadied the ship and managed to create a bit of space on the outside edges to touch down and get themselves back in the game 2 - 1 and game on. Now the game turned into a bit of a tug of war with neither team managing to make any real headway against the opposing defensive line. With half time aproaching the Lions managed to break the pattern and when Brandon offloaded to Kieran there was only going to be one result, Kieran once again using his speed and power to good effect crossing to put us 2 tries clear once again. Folly had one last attack with time running out but it came to nothing with the Lions going in at HT with a well deserved lead.

2nd Half

This half the Lions had to run up the hill and Folly Lane started with posession, but there was no slow start from Folly this time and when they managed to break through our line on our left hand side we looked in dire straights and Folly cantered over for what was a well worked try. The Lions once again steadied the ship and once more the game entered a phase of solid defence with neither offence managing to get on top. This period only ended when the Lions finally managed to get a foothold in Folly Lane territory and take advantage of it with Zak making an intelligent run at the Folly line defence and sneaking over to put us two tries to the good again. Once again Folly lane didnt let their heads drop and with some good work on the right hand side managed to make some space and squeeze in at the corner to put themselves right back into the game. The Lions made some good headway in their next set without ever realy troubling the Folly Lane defense too much handing over posession near the Folly Lane line. With time runing out Folly Lane knew they had to go for it and they threw everything they had at the Lions and only some great last gasp tackling managed to keep the line intact and when on the last Folly lane charged through the middle it looked like they were going to go over, only for the Lions defence to rally and haul them down mere inches short. The Lions took posession and ran a solid set without ever really troubling the Lane defense and managed to bring the game to a close without anymore heart stopping moments. Full time and we won a tough game 4 - 3

Luckily the rain held off for us but conditions were far from ideal for todays game. Saying that, both teams put on an entertaining game for the spectators and gave both sets of coaches plenty of positives to take away from it. One highlight for me personally was how well the team held their shape and how well our new players managed to fit into the team and look like they have been playing with us for years.

Todays team

Ben S
Zak
Kieran
Brandon
Jack
Sam
Sammy
Chris
Ben G-R
Josh
Thomas
Jacob
Cooper

Todays Coaches award was given to Brandon for his great work ethic and general all round play, Geof nailed it for me when he said Brandon can at times slip under the radar given the fact he just gets on with the job, works hard and never make's a scene regardless of what we are doing. A well deserved award

Todays man of the Match was awarded to Jack, it was Jack's first game for us today and he slotted in nicely, working hard in defense and runing hard and fast at the Folly Lane defence. Well done Jack and Welcome to the team.

Another note, it was Cooper's birthday today so a big Happy Birthday from everyone here at the Lions club. Enjoy the rest of your day.

This brings to a close the first half of our season where we have managed to record 13 wins and only 2 losses. This is an exceptional return for our efforts, and while our main focus is keeping it fun and making sure the kids are advancing in the core skills, it does not hurt to get the result on game day. A big well done to everyone in the under 7's for their effort so far, And that includes the Parents, Managers, Players and coaches, its a real team effort and we cant fault anyone for their support so far. So from the coaching, Thank you, we realy couldnt do it without your support.

Next week we play on Saturday at Ashton, so lets let our hair down and enjoy the game and the Day down there. Ashton is always a realy freindly place to visit and i hope that we can travel down there in numbers and support another great club.

See you at training.