Hayton's View - Shieldsmen could spark pointsfest (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Hayton's View - Shieldsmen could spark pointsfest

2:24pm Thursday 28th January 2010 in

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RING-rusty probably best describes Saturday’s performance.

The Lions with two games under their belt in the last three weeks looked sharper early on and gained the match-winning advantage, but as the game progressed we improved and really fought back in the second half.

However, the pick of the pride Lloyd Warner at full back proved to be the 'mane' man and crowned an inspirational personal display with a try in the dying minutes to claim the kill.

The 'Shieldsmen' from Westoe will entertain the crowd at Mint Bridge this week.

In nine of their matches so far they have scored four or more tries to record bonus points. Only top-placed Loughborough have more try bonus points. Their game is built around their attack. With the same number of wins as ourselves they have scored 87 more points than us.

However, they have conceded 86 more points so the stage looks set for a tryfest. There is a bit of Cumbrian interest in their line up with former Sedbergh School and England schools’ prop Matt Shiels in the front row and Dan Rayson from Aspatria at full back.

Centre James Clark is a real flyer and has amassed 11 tries so far outside their specialist kicker and fly-half Charlie Raynor. John Ladell picked up a wrist injury last week but everyone else came through unscathed so we can field a strong line-up.

If we continue to build on our performance later in the game last week we should be able to dent Westoe’s shield.