Axemen Exact Revenge

[danno]

Another great day of Rugby in Jacksonville

From:   
http://www.americanrugbynews.com/artman/publish/rugby_league/Axemen_Exact_Revenge.shtml

Jacksonville has exacted some revenge for its defeat in the 2009 AMNRL championship game by dominating reigning champions New York 34-8 Saturday in Round 5 of the domestic rugby league competition.

The Axemen scored first and were never headed.

Early on both teams tested each other out in what was their first meeting since last year’s Grand Final with play going back and forth at a good clip, but in the seventh minute outside center Akarika Dawn made a 30-meter bust down field to set up his teammate Adrian Grayson for the opening try.

Flyhalf Brent Shorten converted for an early 6-0 lead. Several minutes later, Dawn was involved in the action again, although this time he and New York’s Luke Hume ended up in the sin-bin after a minor dust-up.

“I enjoy it a whole lot,” Dawn, a former college football linebacker, told ARN regarding his second stint with the Axemen. “It’s a perfect transition from football.”

The Knights got one back late in the first quarter when Andrew leBreton scored out wide, but that was as close as the champs would get trailing 6-4 at the first interval.

New York made only one clean line break in the whole game and that came late in the fourth quarter, due to the Axemen’s trademark solid defensive patterns.

Typical of Jacksonville’s game was prop Craig Howitt, who laid on the two biggest hits of the match, earning him the MVP award.

Two second quarter tries by Luke Gray and conversions by Shorten saw the Axemen take an 18-4 lead into halftime as Jacksonville forced New York to make a ton of energy-sapping tackles in the near 100 degree heat.

The Axemen were also able to make extra yards after the tackle which aided their offensive cause.

Dylan Beaver and Taco Pope scored tries for the home team in the third quarter to stretch the scoreline to 28-4, before Matt Thornton, who rejoined the team during the week, capped off a return from injury with his team’s final try of the day on a 60-meter solo effort.

New York got a late consolation score, but by then they were down and out.

“I’m really unhappy at the lack of discipline, but our game plan was pretty much what we wanted to do,” Jacksonville player/coach Spinner Howland told ARN.

“We wanted to use our big men up the middle to draw them into defense so we could get it to our speed out wide and that’s what happened.”


Jacksonville Axemen (4-0) 20pts
Aston DSC Bulls (3-1) 15pts
Connecticut Wildcats (2-2) 12pts
Philadelphia Fight (2-1) 11pts
Fairfax Eagles (2-2) 11pts
New York Knights (2-2) 11pts
Washington DC Slayers (1-3) 7pts
Boston 13s (1-3) 5pts
Pittsburgh Vipers (1-4) 4pts
Northern Raiders (0-4) 0pts

To get caught up on all the news from around the world of rugby league we highly recommend a visit to our friends at www.rleague.com


© Copyright 2010 by AmericanRugbyNews.com

[danno]

Here is a link to some photos from the match Saturday.

http://photos.jacksonville.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=1038888&CategoryID=9088&ListSubAlbums=0