Lions Leapfrog Stafford with a Fine Home Win

The Lions went past Stafford to sixth place in the league with a game in hand after a bonus point victory at Stourton Park. The hosts ran in 4 tries in a 29-5 win. It was a fine team performance with all areas of the squad contributing and with fine individual efforts by Scotty Langdon and Sam Robinson. George Tildesley scored a brace.

For the first 10 mins the Lions were out of sorts and under pressure from aggressive Stafford attacks. They managed to withstand this and pounced with almost their first intrusion into the away 22. A lineout on the Lions left led to a driving maul from which Langdon pounced for the first try, capped by a fine conversion by Harry Wainwright from wide out.

The rest of the half was nip and tuck, with both sides having periods of ascendancy but defences largely on top. On half-time, however, a promising move down the right centre of the field led to Tildesley scything through the fractured defence to score unopposed under the posts. Wainwright’s conversion gave the home outfit a healthy buffer at the half.

The Lions had a rude awakening within a few minutes of the restart when, after a huge effort by the Stafford forwards, they drove over near the posts. The conversion was surprisingly missed but the away side were back in it and putting pressure on the home defence.
Gradually the Lions re-asserted themselves and began to dominate through their back-row and the backs. Prompted cleverly by Robinson they began to drive Stafford backwards and this effort was rewarded by a fine second Tildesley try wide on the Stour right to redress the balance in the scores at 19-5. A penalty converted by Wainwright 5 mins later all but left the game won with a dozen or so mins to go.

Now the home side were free to go for the 4th try and the bonus point. This they did after a few near misses when an inside pass by Robinson after significant pressure on the Stafford line put Dews through the gap to smash over 3 tacklers and touch down. Wainwright’s 3rd conversion of the game gave the Lions a win that was hard fought and never comfortable.

The game was very competitive with the Lions working as hard as we have seen them this season but good communication at half-back and effective defence together with pace and power out wide gave them the edge throughout. In many ways this is looking like a mirror of last season with impetus being developed over the last month and looking good for the rest of the season.

JON DEWS