The day was bright but chilly, and so was our game. The roaring Lions, spurred on by the return of our own Lion-maned Jack Scott, enjoyed a 13-3 victory over a massive ChrEmBroke side. We knew as 16th seeds this game was not going to be high-pressure, however ChrEmBroke brought out at least 14 players and (despite believing we were the Downing Firsts team) brought out a strong front.

The game began with a relatively long point where the six Lions pulled off a two-man junk zone relatively effectively and put a lot of pressure on the ChrEmBroke O. I say six Lions, why is this you wonder? Well I (Aly) being the weak and sickly child that I am was feeling rubbish, so Helen did a stellar job iron-womanning, and the rest of the team worked massively as a six to pull off such a win. Thanks so much guys, by the way, my token point per half absolutely wore me out so I appreciated not having to play :)

A long point later and the Lions finally grabbed the first point, probably caught by Janman, as most of the points were. Starting on D again, the Lions were reminded of why we keep that Jack Scott dude around - a lofty huck from Sam was met perfectly by speedy Jack, who then had a short exchange with Janman into the endzone, scored, and then came off again. After this, the Lions settled into their rhythm, playing a two-man Junk with some fabulous chasing by Tebbs and turning around quickly when the Frisbee dropped to score some quick points. I feel this was a real advantage for us this game - we were swift to pick up and run, taking advantage of ChrEmBroke's slight confusion (given we weren't on man D, they needed to find a man), so we scored points quickly and put a lot of pressure on them.

Highlights of the first half have to be a number of beautiful deep cuts from Janman, normally ending in scoring, and of course Sam's beautiful pulls (there was also an absolute beaut from Kaustuv, although this may have been in the second half). The halfway point came almost as a surprise as it was pretty quick, the scoreline 7-0.

The second half came much the same, although ChrEmBroke woke up a bit and started putting pressure on, especially in the endzone. However, we continued to be a strong side, with Helen scoring a wonderful deep point, a layout in the endzone from Kaustuv, and a massive D from Kenny. Tebbs was about 2 inches away from scoring a Callahan, and a ChrEmBroke player (who also managed to successfully play the whole match in glasses) D'ed a disc about 10m. I made my token appearance of the second half, where we tried man D and successfully got a turnover. However, a point to take away from that was my mark had positioned herself beautifully deep and, given my sickliness (let's use that as an excuse), could blatantly have outrun me - but she just stood there rather than cutting, so yeah you should always cut rather than just stand somewhere vaguely open.

The final few points were predictably quick - although ChrEmBroke did get a few back including one where there were 3 free players in the endzone... how did that happen lol? Anyways, an unfortunate drop of the pull by Emily S led to a quick point on the edge of the endzone scored by Jack 'I put my arm up to block the sun, and caught the disc' Scott. The final point saw Dan being an aggressive chase, and then doing a beautiful deep run on turnover, catching the disc well ahead of the ChrEmBroke players and doing a casual toss to Tom T, who scored the winning point.

Overall, a fairly comprehensive victory from the Lions, who played exceptionally considering they were a man short (again, sorry! And thank you!). ChrEmBroke are certainly a team not to be underestimated - I think Tejas summarised it well when he said they just lacked playtime, and also a little knowledge of the rules (there was some contact fouling on me, and oodles of travelling). We may be seeing some of them at practise! The Lions stuck to the zone effectively, were chilly in the wind, and used the handler > dump > handler cut several times to great effect. The rugby lads demonstrated why we keep them around (so. much. speed) and Sam, Tejas, Kaustuv and Tebbs shared the majority of handling to their usual standard. MVP was Kaustuv, and we gave them a 4 for Spirit.

ROAR,

Aly