The Lions Lick their Wounds

After a few minutes Connor Moss sliced through the Bulls’ defence to offload to Ollie Schofield for a good try . The pack were playing quite well at this stage and the line-outs went well .
Then the Home team started to tackle well in the backs and came up very quickly on the Lions’ centres and stripped the ball to gain possession . However, the Lions responded and Luke Armstrong ran strongly and went over for a try , which was converted by Moss .
Aylesford started to do better in the forward exchanges and having kicked two penalties, their very capable Fly-half moved the ball quickly to the right and the backs outstripped the defence to score . This ability to move the ball well to their strong backs paid dividends for Aylesford and they scored two more quick tries due to some poor tackling by the visitors’ defence and making the extra space required on the flanks .
When the Lions forwards drove down into the opposition half, a sustained series of drives very near the Aylesford line just failed to be converted into a try . However, Moss kicked two good penalties for Aylesford transgressions and the score at half-time was 21 – 18 to the Home side .

The Lions played into the variable but strong wind in the second half and despite some more good ball being won in the line-outs by the Lions, the Bulls’ defence in the centre gave the Lions little room to attack and ball was spilled too easily to lose possession . After a penalty and a try against the Lions, Moss again broke through the Home defence with a good run, only to make a poor pass for Armstrong when he himself should have gone over for a try under the posts . This was a great opportunity lost .

Aylesford then made good use of the wind at their backs and further tries ensued to give the Home side a good victory .

It was telling that the Chairman of Aylesford said that this was the first time all season that his Club had been able to field their first-choice side and that he understood very well the difficulties that were caused by two or three key players being injured or missing from a side . The Lions had four notable players absent through injury and that was a handicap . The young replacements have done very well and they are gaining good experience but the return of some of the first-choice players will be welcome .

The week-end’s results showed that ‘on their day’ any team in the League is capable of beating any other team . It is a ‘tight’ competition !

Reporter David Storrie