Lions finish the year on a high!

The youthful Lions outfit played the more positive game of rugby out of the two teams with all their tries coming after good phases of handling and offloads by the whole side, helped by Newick missing a number of scoring opportunities.

The Lions started the game strongly with a number of good breaks by the backs pushing Newick back to their 22 only to be penalised for holding on at the breakdown by the referee. After this Newick cleared their lines only to not throw straight in the lineout from the scrum Horsham spun the ball wide then quickly moved the ball back to attack against the slow Newick forwards with outside centre Jerry Downey scoring after a good dummy, and a show of the pace to go in for the score.

After the first try the Lions kept plying pressure on to the Newick defence with a number of breaks down the right wing only for the referee to whistle for a penalty at the breakdown yet again. Yet this did not stop the Lions from picking the pace up and with the injection of colts winger Declan Nwachukwu who came on as a sub of the bench to produce a wonderful display of speed and great footwork to going for a long range try with his third touch of the game.

After the break Newick were on the back foot by the pace of the Horsham game and with a good back interplay the ball found its way out to Nwachukwu to race in for his second try in the left hand corner.

Horsham’s final try was possible their best of the season with most of the team touching the ball in a free flowing movement with Colt fly-half Alex Clery playing a key role in the break and with good support work from Jake Gates who supplied the final pass with a well timed offload to prop Kyle Fairs to score the try of the game and maybe of the season.

Lions manager Andrew Layzell said, ‘I’m happy with the win but a number of factors stopped us from achieving the score that some of our play deserved. I thought the referee did not help with the flow of the game as both sides were frustrated with the stop start nature of the game. I was impressed with our two flankers, Will McHale and Emmet O’Rahilly who were both outstanding. I was yet again impressed with the Colts today who stepped up with Alex Clery showing good composure at fly half and Declan Nwachukwu showing his pace. Hopefully the Colts can join us more often and come to Tuesday night training with the seniors to help improve their games’.

Horsham Lions next game is a Sussex bowl quarter-final clash at Coolhurst against Heathfield & Waldron 2’s on 3rd January 2015.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!