Despite only scoring twice in the first half in a two-tries-in-5-minutes spell, Neil Back’s Lions had a talented, organised and positive side in front of them as well a breeze in their faces, the glare of a bright sun in their eyes and a much bigger crowd than normal cheering them on. So stopping a side that has recently been more than matching their own high-scoring feats from registering a point with everything in their favour in the first half was a really important statement in the context of where the game was going.
Lions’ changes from the home win against Longton brought in Stewart Pearl at hooker and Fraser Tait at lock. Scunthorpe had two penalties in the first 3 minutes but Rugby announced themselves in the game via flanker Will Brock’s thudding tackle as the forwards got to grips with an experienced opposition pack. On 12 minutes, backs and forwards combined to shift the ball out to the right where skipper Andy Vilk stormed over for the first try converted by new Barbarian Leigh Hinton to the delight of a good number of Rugby fans that very pleasingly included those who came on the revived supporters bus. Then Brock chased after Ben Gollings’ high kick and Nigel Mukarati and Sam Raven were on hand to use the ball made available to send in Fraser Tait for Lions’ second try, again converted by Hinton to surprisingly bring an end to the first-half scoring at 0-14 with just 16 minutes played.
Rugby did however miss further chances when a final pass was not delivered and then Raven was taken powerfully into touch with the tryline in his sights. Prop Nick Adams was lying injured in his 22 when the Greens’ left wing Rewiti Vaimoso looked certain to score a try to until the referee, a former Scunthorpe player, blew for attention to Adams who soon after needed to be replaced by Dan Oselton. After good work from the backs, the Lions pack seemed to have scored a fine pushover try through prop Gareth Hardy but the unsighted ref ruled it held up although video evidence showed the ball was in fact properly grounded.
So the interval arrived with Lions held to 0-14 but the second half was to prove rather different for both sides with over 50 points shared unevenly between both sides. Rugby effectively settled the result with another pair of tries within 6 minutes of the restart.
The productive Gollings and Vilk pairing produced another converted try for Vilk and then another good Brock chase of a high kick allowed Dan Needham to send in Raven for Lions’ bonus point try expertly converted by Hinton from wide out for 0-28. A turnover by Hardy eventually led to the almost inevitable try by the league’s top try scorer Ade Hales after good work by Mukarati and Matt Mountford for 0-33. Suddenly, the Greens found their scoring touch with an enterprising run from Scunny skipper Tom Foster with the conversion from Karl Clayton. However, on 64 minutes, a good Lions move appeared to have faltered when a pass went to ground but Tait was the quickest to react, calmly picking up and easing over the line before Hales scored his second try with two more Hinton conversions making it 7-47 after 71 minutes.
Rugby will be disappointed they did not then emphasise their advantage in the last few minutes and instead switched off to allow Scunthorpe to score twice to think what the hosts will think gave them some justified reward for their efforts.
Rugby Lions: Mountford, Hinton, Wackett, Vilk, Hales, Gollings, Needham, Hardy, Pearl, Adams, Bibic, Tait, Raven, Brock, Mukarati. Reps: Oselton, Carney, Rust
Match report by kind permission of Rugby Lions
