Paphos Tigers v Limassol Crusaders Joint Services league Match
16th Jan 2010. Kiniras Sports Ground
Paphos Tigers 17 Limassol Crusaders 3
After an unexpected switch of venues from Limassol to Paphos with just a few hours notice, the well organised Tigers supporters managed to get the pitch marked and poles upright in time for a 2.30 kick off.
So this local derby commenced with both teams having to make a lot of changes due to injuries the match was wide open and anybodies for the taking.
Early pressure came from Limassol and only good defence by the Tigers prevented an early score, however after 15 minutes another team change had to be made by Tigers as second row Vlad Mihaylov left with an ankle injury, and for a while their pack lost some formation and Limassol took advantage with a quick tap penalty and almost scored again but were held up by good covering tackles.
The Tigers were starting to put some good moves together but because of last minute errors they were not realised into points , and unusually they even missed a couple of penalties, so went into half time with the score, a probable fair reflection at nil all.
The Tigers needed a quick score to start the second half and thought they had achieved this after 2 minutes, but the referee judged it was knocked on when being grounded and was disallowed. Tiger hooker Graeme Scott disagreed with this decision and was sin binned for 10 minutes for dissent. Limassol took advantage of this situation and nearly scored a try themselves but were forced into touch preventing this score. Several rolling rucks were tried against the Tigers which were held up, and a frustrated Limassol flanker was sinbinned for fighting. However Limassol used their lineout advantage to great effect, and kept the pressure on the Tigers. Both sides were being penalised for silly matters and Limassol No10 Jonathan Davies converted his penalty to take the visitors into a 3-0 lead.
It was another 10 minutes before Tiger George Agathocleous levelled the score, and a quick tap penalty taken by the Tigers was only just held up inches short of the line.
Unfortunately over the next 10 minutes both Tiger's Thoma and Crusaders Spring were both yellow carded, and further penalties were missed, but tries were still to come.
Young Charles Gallagher came into the pack freeing up Agathocleous so the Tigers were able to reshuffle their backs and this made a marked difference to their style and within 5 minutes a try was forthcoming. A great scrum picked up and taken on 3 times by the forwards sucked in Limassol and so the ball went along the backs for George Agathocleous to score under the posts ands he made sure of this conversion taking the Tigers to 10-3
At the restart Tiger Captain Matt Lowe took a hanging 50/50 ball and freed it up to go along the line and George and Dimitri inter passed several times with all their backs covering 60metres before Dimitri scored under the posts, converted again by George.
Final score Tigers 17 Limassol 3.
This was a typical local derby, with both sides missing key personnel, sinbinnings, missed penalties and disallowed tries, but the Tigers have now played 6 and won 6 matches in the League and are currently table toppers, with 6 more matches to go.
Nigel Jarvis Secretary PTRFC
Paphos Tigers are sponsored by M1 Lux Cyprus, Horizon group & Mercato del Golfo.
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