Lions devour Hawks

THE Lions maintained their recent impressive form to defeat second-placed Hunslet in Sunday's sun-drenched fixture at the South Leeds Stadium.

In what Swinton coach Les Holliday later described as a workmanlike performance similar to those at Whitehaven and Dewsbury all the Lions hard work is finally bearing some fruit.

George Mann made his run on debut and certainly put himself about in the opening quarter.

So much so that referee Colin Morris spoke to him twice including just after he had clattered Steve Price with a high tackle.

The first scoring opportunity came Swinton's way when the Hawks were penalised for ball-stealing.

Unfortunately Steve Gartland, who earlier in the week had been suffering from a stomach complaint, couldn't kick the penalty goal.

Thirteen minutes into the game Gartland started a left-wing move which saw Paul Barrow hand onto Andy Craig for the ex-Wigan man to cross in the corner. Again, Gartland was wide with the goal kick.

Jim Evans was having difficulty with Hunslet's kicking game this was illustrated when he almost lost the ball behind his own line midway through the half.

Hunslet hit back with Evans being caught flatfooted as Latham Tawhai sold a superb dummy to put Rob Wilson in under the posts. St John Ellis put the Hawks into the lead with the conversion.

The Lions hit back on the half hour with a brilliant effort from Gavin Price-Jones.

The winger used his height advantage to tower above Richard Baker and pluck Gartland's precision high-kick out of the air to dive over the line.

Again, Gartland was wide with the conversion but at least the Lions had re-gained the lead.

Yet again Hunslet came back. A short pass from Matthew Green saw Price cross under the posts to leave St John Ellis with another simple conversion goal.

The only piece of malice in the game came when Rob Wilson was put on report for a spear tackle on Simon Ashcroft.

With two minutes to go to the break the Lions extracted full advantage with the ball being worked from right to left in the Hunslet quarter a neat short pass from Shaun Casey sent Gareth Adams racing over from 20 metres out.

Gartland's stomach bug had finally got the better of him so Watson stepped up to give the Lions a 14-12 interval lead.

The Lions opened the second half in a positive frame of mind. After Hunslet were caught offside in a play-the-ball Watson again did the business with a successful goal kick. Ten minutes into the half and Peter Cannon burrowed his way through a wall of legs for the Lions final try, this after Paul Hulme had gone tantalisingly close.

With half an hour to go it was 20-12 didn't seem at that stage to be enough. Price-Jones missed with a drop goal attempt before Casey and Torhai were spoken to by referee Morris after a bout of pushing.

Controversially the penalty went the way of the Hawks but St John Ellis was short and wide with his long-range goal attempt.

Six minutes from the final hooter Paul Manson spin a pass out to Rob Wilson and he got Chris North over the Lions line five metres in from touch.

St John Ellis again failed with the goal kick.

With both sides tiring Swinton had a let-off when a St John Ellis try was disallowed after a forward pass by Lafaele Filipo.

Both sides squandered possession in the final few minutes and Swinton sub Andy Coley had another try disallowed, this time for a double movement.

This was an impressive win against a team who are riding high following their promotion last season.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.