Plymstock Albion Oaks29 v Liskeard-Looe 14

Liskeard-Looe lose to 4th placed Plymstock

For the pen-ultimate league match of the season The Lions made the short trip to Plymouth. Having to make two enforced changes from the previous week’s game with both Treve Murley and Jordan Smith being unavailable, moving James Rogers from the bench to the wing (with Ieuan Evans dropping back to cover fullback) and bringing in Fijian import Naita Timoci onto the other wing, with Nathan Wills coming onto the bench; they also dropped young prop Jack Wilton (on the bench last week) back to the seconds to give him game time.
The Lions started reasonably well forcing an early attacking lineout, inside the home twenty-two, unfortunately the ball was knocked on and with the referee playing advantage P.A.O. attacked running the ball almost the length of the pitch, in a swift passing move, that culminated with them going in for an unconverted try. Liskeard kept pressuring P.A.O. but couldn’t find their way through a mixture of good defence and falling foul of the referees whistle. Then on the half hour the home side scored a second unconverted try from a catch and drive lineout to make it 10-0, unfortunately towards the end of the half Liskeard were reduced to fourteen men, through a yellow card; there was to be no further scoring before half-time.
The first twenty minutes or so of the second half saw both sides trying to play open rugby without success then on the hour Nick Parker stripped the ball off a PAO defender, inside the home twenty-two, and made the initial break before popping a pass to centre Oliver Aggiss, coming on a superb angle,, to go in for a try that was converted by Parker. PAO immediately hit back with a converted try of their own; shortly after they scored their bonus point try, somewhat controversially, from a tap penalty taken behind the referees back; this was also converted to give them a 24-7 lead. On around the seventieth minute Liskeard were inside the PAO twenty-two where they were awarded scrum, at which Liskeard drove them back, the referee signalled a penalty, the referee played advantage and Liskeard continued driving to get close to the try-line where PAO infringed again and the referee awarded a penalty try, to make it 14-24; superb work by the Liskeard pack. With the last play of the game, following a line-out PAO scored a fifth try, this time unconverted, to make it 29-14 at the whistle; not a good day at the office. The 2nd XV were also inaction at PAO unfortunately losing heavily, after losing several players to injury leaving them short-handed. This coming weekend The Lions play their last game of the season welcoming Devon club South Molton to Lux Park and this match will have a 1500 kick off.