Lions 3 - 49 Lichfield

The Lions arrived at Cooke Fields bathed in glorious sunshine for the opening encounter of Midlands 3 (WN) campaign against a wounded Lichfield side. They topped the Midlands 2 table at Christmas last year only to be relegated at the end of the season.

The game started with both sides testing each other with an early kicking exchange – the Lions had the early territory advantage. An attacking scrum for lions was steady and the ball moved across the back line unfortunately a miss pass was intercepted by Lichfields No14 to run 60m to open the scoring and converted 7 – 0. Stour returned to the Lichfield half following a passage of broken play Lewis Collins collected a misplaced Lichfield kick with only one thought ‘Drop Goal’ he hit sweetly from 30m and sailed over 7 – 3. Into the second quarter and Lichfield were now starting to tick – they began to pressure the Lions line and following a line out the ball was moved along the line with a 3 v 1 overlap Lichfield No12 seemed to have chosen the wrong option of going for glory he was tackled however Lichfield won the resulting ruck and No13 dived over to score with no 15 converting 14-3. Both teams were looking to run the ball – a missed penalty from each side didn’t change the scores however a further miss from stour wasn’t chased resulted in Lichfield countering – returning to the stour 22 with an infringement at the scrum Lichfield converted the resulting penalty 17-3. Towards the end of the first half yet another infringement was punished with a successful penalty 20-3. Jacob John, with one of his trade mark swerving runs, almost scored but was brought down short of the line – the ball was turned over and the line was cleared.

The second half started promisingly for the Lions with early pressure in the Lichfield 22 a resulting penalty was kicked to the corner however the lineout was lost and Lichfield countered up the centre of the pitch – from the broken play Lichfields No 10 scored a try in the corner 25 – 3. Lichfield continued to press and with an attacking lineout close to the Stour line the ball was moved swiftly across the back line with the fly-half dotting down in almost the same place as his earlier score 30-3. Heads seemed to go down on the stour side and handling errors were more evident. For the next 10 mins both teams were even however Lichfield then took the game by the scruff of the neck and although there was a suggestion of a forward pass Lichfield finished a flowing movement with the scrum half scoring near to the stour posts for an easy conversion 37-3. The restart was chipped to the less populated area of the pitch however Lichfield No 13 gathered chipped and gathered again to canter 35m and score beneath the posts 44-3. Moving to the latter stages of the game Lichfield were playing with confidence and yet again scored following a decent handling movement No 14 once again getting on the scoresheet.

A tough opener against a side who will be challenging at the top this year I’m sure. We now know the standard we have to achieve so lets hope that we can raise our game for the first home game next week against Old Saltleians.