The Lions Come Up Short Against Charlton Park

The Lions were without three key players forward players due to injury , so gaining possession of the ball was always going to be a problem . In the end, it was the damage of penalty kicks and an inability to gain enough line-out ball that tilted the balance towards the Home team.
Having succumbed to an early penalty kick for an infringement at a ruck, Ollie Best at Fly-half produced a superb try on the right wing, stepping inside Charlton defenders to cross wide out. He then converted to give the Lions a lead . There followed an interesting contest, with Charlton putting up a stout defence as the Lions backs made some good attacks. Nathan Mitford, coming off his wing in forays into the centre caused the Home defence some problems, but they held out somehow. The Lions line-out play was not good and so the team had to defend hard as Charlton attacked from the position gained from these events. In contrast, the Lions pack did very well in the tight scrums, contesting strongly all the time.
After a period of play in which no side was dominant, Charlton did manage to score a converted try and Best kicked a penalty, for the Half-Time score to be 10 - 7 in favour of the Home side.
The second half was much as the first, with both sides attacking hard and mostly defending well. Anthony Hart and Sam Cullis put in some excellent tackles and the pack won a notable heel against the head . Adam Michael, the Captain, was sharp with his pass and Luke Armstrong, playing out of position again in the centre, showed his most powerful run so far in the game and scored an excellent try near the post, which Best converted. Then Jamie Guy at Full-back received a painful injury to his leg after a good counter-attack run and had to be replaced by Josh Erskine. Meanwhile , the Home side were given some penalty chances, one of which was decidedly wrong, and they slowly regained the lead. Luke Armstrong came very close to breaking the Home defence with a strong run in the centre at an excellent angle of attack, but was just caught by a desperate tackle . Then Charlton scored a try out wide and while they were leading 21 - 14 and coming under strong attack , the Lions were penalised by having their Loose-Head prop sent off for a front-row offence.
Nevertheless, the Lions continued to attack and chose to kick for position rather than take the penalty kicks and went for a try score. Then came a very unlucky break, a Charlton player hacked forward a loose ball from their own 22 metre area and chased to give them a try . It was a cruel blow and against the trend of play at that time. However, the Lions were tiring in the closing minutes of the game and Charlton pressed strongly again.
A good game in which the final score did not reflect just how close the contest was. So now, the struggle to avoid relegation from the League becomes even more difficult.

Reporter David Storrie