Pre Season Limassol Friendly
25th September 2007
by Andrew Hill

On Sunday 23rd September the Tigers travelled to Limassol for an pre season friendly.

With players and meeting up early at the Keg we headed in convoy to Limassol with some concise directions from Gazza. Needless to say Gazza himself got lost a couple of times so it was with some relief that ALL the players who'd left the Keg turned up at the Limassol ground.

A swift warm-up and words of advice and encouragement from Tony got us ready. We were determined not to suffer from the same slow early start to previous games so the concentration levels were high and the motivation in place. With captain Dimitri away (in France for RWC) and coach Barrie absent (who knows where? Anybody? Any clues?) we relied on the experienced players to have us prepared.

Also with Dimitri away the long held position of scrum-half was vacant. We had no obvious replacement as no-one on the team has ever played there competitively so it was the short straw for AJ.

Early moves from both the pack and the back-line saw us gain territorial advantage. With a penalty not far out AJ tapped and ran but didn't have the momentum to go over. Gazza to the rescue with a quick thinking collect and drive to take the Tigers over.

More steady work from the forwards and in particular some well worked lineout ball saw the forwards combine with the backs in running off the back of the lineout. Quick hands and excellent off-loading created some good breaks. Whilst these flashes of excellent were an inspiration there was some frustration at not being able to turn this good rugby into points.

A moment of individual brilliance from Tony Crassas took him through the Limassol defence from centre around the defenders and scoring under the posts.

With the partnership of Matt and AJ pulling the strings the Tigers looked confident. More scores followed to make it 24-0 at half time.

Lots of shuffling of players and positions at half time allowed us to work out our best combinations. More solid work in the second half saw some more of the flashes of great rugby we had seen earlier but the points just wouldn't come. Limassol took advantage of this to force some good territory but the Tigers defence held firm.

A single try in the second half took the score to 31-0 at full time with a Tigers team knowing they should have put more points on given the strength and depth of the team.

Thanks to Limassol for the game and to those who travelled to Limassol to watch and support.