Royals dethroned as Ravens swoop to win (From Bromsgrove Advertiser)

Royals dethroned as Ravens swoop to win

8:00am Thursday 5th July 2012 in Local

Leamington Royals 20 NEW Ravens 34

NEW Ravens savoured their first win of the season as part of double header at the Butts stadium in Coventry on Saturday.

While the main fixture was the National League clash between St Albans and Coventry Bears, North East Worcestershire Ravens took advantage of a full compliment of players to finally get off the mark in the Midlands Division One.

From the kick-off the Ravens’s players had fire in their bellies as some useful running from debutant Rhamel Blake showed he was going to be a thorn in the Royals side all game.

On 10 minutes after a Ravens handling error gave the Royals the advantage at the scrum, Leamington moved the ball swiftly to opening the scoring with a try and give them a 6-0 lead.

In previous games this season the Ravens heads have dropped and allowed the opposition to score more points, but they went close on a few occasions in the next 10 minutes, with Blake battering the opposition with his runs.

The Ravens forwards were more than a match for the Royals pack which enabled the half-backs Sean Flynn and Sean Sudworth to create an attacking platform which saw Alex Mills-Baker score the first try for the Ravens, which was converted by Sudworth to level the scores.

Two minutes later a marvellous break by Blake from in his own half saw Flynn sprint 50 metres to score the next Ravens try and another successful conversion from Sudworth to give them the lead for the first time.

Ravens’ forwards were all making in-roads with Matt Jupp making yardage each time and always on the lookout for the offload. Leamington came close on a couple of times only for the excellent Ravens scrambling defence to deny them on each occasion.

With half-time only two minutes away, Ravens struck twice with first Cameron Hunt and Anthony Freeman going over for converted tries, which were both converted by Sudworth to give them a 26-5 lead.

The first 10 to 15 minutes of the second half was going to be crucial as the Royals were going to throw everything into attack to get back in the game but Ravens stood tall and defended well with crunching tackles coming in from Jason Spafford, Arran Warburton and Flynn.

Sudworth continued his excellent form as he kicked a conversion.

Leamington pulled a score back but the Ravens were in full flight and Mills-Baker touched down as the Finstall Park-based outfit powered into a 30-12 lead.

Despite two late tries by Leamington, Blake saw his endeavours rewarded with a touch down.

Debutants Blake ,Patrick Bakoukissa and Luke Blake were fantastic in their first ever game of Rugby League and in Luke’s case first ever game of rugby.

Next week’s game is at home to Coventry Dragons on Saturday (2.30pm start) at home, where the Ravens will hopefully wearing the new kit sponsored by NASUWT.

Old and new players welcome to play this exciting game, with training on Wednesday nights from 7.30pm at Finstall Park.