The Lions headed out to Southampton for the first leg of the South West Development League (SWDL) with a small but mighty team. First game of the day we played against Solent Sharks and got off to a great start and playing some great rugby winning 17 – 8. Next up we faced off against Brighton Buccaneers and put in another sterling performance to take the game 25 – 11.
At the break our Lion Cubs took on a barbarian team. The cubs tenacious as always, scored some amazing tries with some of the Junior GB Talent players giving some great advice to our youngsters to help them improve individually and as a team.
For the last round robin game we faced off against The West Country Hawks who as always are a tough challenge. The Lions managed to edge the Hawks out with a convincing 24 – 15 victory. Into the playoffs and we faced off against a Sharks team that were improving throughout the day with each game they played. The Lions started off a bit shaky but soon settled back into what had worked for us all day and came out on top 19 – 15 in a very hard fought game.
What Rob Emery our head coach had to say, “It was great to see the team gelling so well and implementing all the stuff we have been working on at practice. It was great having Julian Allen, recently back from the Invictus Games and leading a few training sessions and bringing some new skills and systems in which worked extremely well for us. We look forward to hosting round 2 at home on Saturday 12 June. I know all the teams will be bringing their A game and it will be a great test for us to see if we can build on the performances from round 1.”
