Liskeard-Looe 26 v Lanner 20

The Lions return to winning ways

Last Saturday for the seventeenth round of the Cornwall/Devon league the visitors to Lux Park were Lanner who had narrowly beaten Liskeard in the first half of the season in a tight game so the Lions were hopeful of returning to winning ways. The Lions made four changes to the squad of the previous week, two positional, with Sam Chapman, starting at number ten, having his first start since September 8th (last week on the bench) and Treve Murley moving from the ten berth to inside centre, in place of the unavailable Ben Kitto, with Mike Prowse coming onto the bench, also coming onto the bench was Jack Parker for the unavailable Gareth Cooke.
The Lions started well and inside of five minutes points were on the board when from a scrum, just inside the home half, the forwards drove it on, before releasing the backs, this saw a superb break from full back Jordan Smith to send outside centre Oliver Aggiss in for a good team try; Aggiss converted this to make it 7-0. In the tenth minute Lanner hit back with a try of their own, this came from a scrum on the left hand side of the field, inside the Lions twenty-two, before breaking right to cross in the right hand corner for an unconverted try. In the eighteenth minute Liskeard had the chance to increase their lead but Aggiss’s penalty kick at goal, from about thirty metres, after Lanner were caught offside, was wayward and the chance was lost. About four minutes later Liskeard scrum half James Noel-Johnson put in a box kick, this was chased down by Smith, who knocked it back to start inter-passing, between forwards and backs, to send backrower Adam Tyndale-Powell in for a try; Aggiss’s attempted conversion unfortunately hit an upright and bounced clear. Just after the restart Liskeard gave away a penalty, just inside their twenty-two, this was slotted to make the score 12-8. On thirty-two minutes Lanner intercepted a Liskeard pass, on the home ten metre line to race through for a converted try, to take the score to 12-15 at the whistle.
In the fifty-fifth minute great play, by the Lions pack, saw replacement prop James Maunder driving over from close range, for his first try for the club; Aggiss was successful with his conversion kick for Liskeard to retake the lead. On sixty-five minutes Aggiss was high-tackled, just short of the Lanner try-line, the referee could have and arguably should have, awarded a penalty try; instead he issued a yellow card to Lanner and awarded a penalty to Liskeard. From the ensuing line out the Liskeard pack drove it on and backrower Charlie Virgo-Brown drove over for the bonus point try that was converted by Aggiss to further increase the Liskeard lead. Lanner came back strongly and following a second intercepted pass scored an unconverted try to make it 26-20. Following this was several nail-biting minutes for The Lions as Lanner threw everything they had at them but the defence stood firm and there was to be further scoring and the game finished with a well-deserved win for Liskeard. The next match is this coming Saturday when Liskeard travel to second from bottom Hayle with a 1430 kick off. To make it a good day for Liskeard rugby the 2nd XV, also playing at home, entertaining Plymouth University 4ths in Plymouth Combination’s Armada league, won 31-5 with tries coming from Naita Timoci with 2, prop Phil Morford with 1, hooker Mike Porter with 1 and lock Jake McKay and three conversions from fly half Marcus Hill.