26th May 2005 BAFL Division One Southern Sundevils 0-6 London Olympians After the shock defeat to the Southern Sundevils in Game 3 (23-14) the Olympians had the opportunity to make immediate amends by returning the favour at the Sundevils home ground in Southampton. 2 weeks wasn’t a long time to fix the problems especially as one of the training sessions coincided with a GB camp of which a large number of Olympians are team members. Credit to the coaches however is due as they did a great job of preparing their players and it was now up to the players to do their part. Sunday 26th was very hot and probably not the best day to be running around with 15lbs of equipment on, but it’s what we do on a Sunday come rain or shine… 1st Quarter The London team won the toss deferring the decision to the 2nd half. Southern decided to take the ball on the opening Kick-off which they just got to their own 20yd line. The O’s defence had spent a lot of time tightening up a defence that had allowed 4 score’s the previous game. Southern import all-rounder E Lewis(3) took the reigns at QB due to N Stalick being back in New York. Although he made some excellent individual contributions to this drive he failed to move the Suns consistently and the drive eventually broke down, with some solid tackles from L Reid(95), A MacKenzie(98) and A Oyemade(1) before finally a fumble was picked up by the ever aware Defensive End, Reid. The Olympians Offence showed similar inconsistencies to Southern’s the only real movement coming from a 30 yd completion from S Franklin(8) to J Price(3) but otherwise the offence moved in fits and starts before the drives stumbled this was the story for both offences for the 1st quarter, the deadlock finally being broken by L Reid who is becoming somewhat of a fumble recovery expert picking up the rolling ball after MacKenzie forced a fumble and ran it back 18yds to the Endzone for the 6 points, the PAT was no good. 2nd Quarter Southern Sundevils 00-06 London Olympians Unfortunately it was more of the same for the 2nd quarter both teams defences bringing too much for the opposing team and playing out of their skins and not allowing either offence room to breathe. Southern didn’t seem to have an alternative threat to its running game and the Olympians usually outstanding receiver corp. were dropping balls in great positions like it was hot coal. Halftime Summary Both offences need to find some consistency and work out a way around the opposing on form defences. 3rd Quarter Southern Sundevils 00-06 London Olympians Finally we started to get a bit of movement out of an offence O’s helm man, Franklin picking out stalwart receiver (returning from an ankle injury) C Palumbo(10) 3 times for 35 yards, but still no scoring from the Olympians offence, this was beginning to get frustrating for the defence. Both defences held tight with some vicious tackling from O’s defenders S Rowe(5), S Conte(55), N Burns and T Newton(44) who played on in a play, after having his helmet knocked off by a lead blocker (Crazy) halting Southerns advances. 4th Quarter Southern Sundevils 00-06 London Olympians It was still anyone’s game a broken play a lucky pass or even some well-executed offence would win this game. Young running back M Sobanjo(34) in partnership with R Williams(23) and B D'Anyangwe(30) took over as the offensive coordinator decided we should try to pound it out and limit the opportunity of a late interception. Williams set the tone with a couple of inspirational runs with the most memorable skipping through most of the D-line and Linebacker Corp of Southern before finishing it off by De-Cleating the Southern Safety(30) who came up to make the tackle. Sobanjo(34) in his 2nd year as an Olympians senior impressed his coaches with the non-stop driving of his legs dragging piles for 1st down after 1st down finally setting up a QB Sneak by Franklin from 5yds out…At last an offence had scored! The 2pt conversion by was received by Running Back, M Coppinger(36) (also back from injury). With Southern desperately needing to reply Defensive Back, C Cahoon(24) delivered the knockout blow with two back-to-back interceptions (the Olympians managed to turn the ball over in between the interceptions themselves (tut-tut). However when presented the ball for the 2nd time in quick succession the offence probably out of guilt drove down the remaining half of the field before rookie Tight-End, J Cropper(81) received the 8yd pass from Franklin to complete the scoring for the day. In summarising a decisive, if un-flattering victory which until late on was anyone’s game. Coach Riq had this to say, “It was a frustrating day on offence, we made simple errors and lacked focus, I lost count of the amount of footballs we dropped, but defensively I was very happy, we had to make some quite substantial adjustments in a short period of time and the guy’s adapted admirably”