After a nail biting victory earlier in the season Skolars couldn’t complete the double over promotion hopefuls Keighley in the final game of the season.
The visitors were delayed in Friday evening traffic leading to a late kick-off and torrential rain from earlier in the day led to errors on both sides.
Cougars started well with Demetriou opening the scoring with a diagonal run from left field towards the posts, cutting through the defence. Both sides then had tries disallowed before John Paxton raced onto a Dylan Skee kick for Skolars’ first try, Skee adding the extras to take them into the lead.
They extended their lead four minutes later when Austen Aggrey stole the ball from Demetriou and raced 50 metres to the line, showing that he has lost little of his pace with his transfer over the last two years from wing to pack.
Demetriou soon made amends with a short pass that put Ryan Benjafield through to the tryline. Jermaine Wray, so often a thorn in Skolars’ side over the last 9 years, put in an excellent performance coming on at hooker from the bench and soon set up Brendon Rawlins, who powered over the line from 10 metres out to give Keighley the lead, Lawton converting to put them four points ahead at the break.
The second half saw Skolars regularly penalised with a 2-11 penalty count against them. Those were mainly for technical offences, but frustration led to a melee that saw Olly Purslow and Dave Halley sin-binned.
Soon afterwards, Cougars kicked deep to the right wing, Skolars could get to the ball in time and Gavin Duffy just got there first. That seemed to raise their game, Scott Law making a strong run which led to a try for Jake Normington on the left wing.
A penalty five minutes later saw Cougars go for goal whilst 12 points ahead. There were few chances on either side as the error rate grew. Aaron Small did well to defuse a Keighley bomb, but Cougars scored again with Demetriou again showing his experience in pulling apart the defence with his passing, finding Normington, who crossed for his second try.
The restart saw Skolar’s best chance of the half. Lamont Bryan, who had a good second half after being swiched to centres following an injury to Paxton, regathered the ball from the kick-off and it took a determined effort by the visitors to stop his rampage just short of the line.
Austen Aggrey won The Mall Wood Green Man of the Match.
LONDON SKOLARS
3 James Anthony
18 Aaron Small
11 Matt Thomas
36 John Paxton
2 Smokie Junor
7 Dylan Skee
30 Mourad Kriouache
8 Tony Williams
9 Gareth Honor
34 David Williams
21 Lamont Bryan
15 Olly Purslow
25 Austen Aggrey
Subs (all used)
32 Sam Gee
21 Danny Burke
22 Saqib Murtza
29 Michael Sykes
Tries: Paxton (18), Aggrey (22)
Goals: Skee 2/2
Sin-binning: Purslow (52) – fighting
COUGARS
2 Craig Moss
31 Dave Halley
4 Danny Lawton
33 Jake Normington
5 Gavin Duffy
29 Jason Demetriou
7 Ryan Smith
8 Andy Shickell
9 James Feather
10 Scott Law
11 Will Cartledge
12 Olly Pursglove
22 Ben Sagar
Subs (all used)
14 Jermaine Wray
16 Brendon Rawlins
17 Ryan Benjafield
21 Richard Jomes
Tries: Demetriou (4), Benjafield (21), Rawlins (31), Duffy (52), Normingtom (61,75)
Goals: Lawton 3/7
Sin-binning: Halley (52) – fighting
Rugby Leaguer & League Express Men of the Match
Penalty count: 7-18
Half-time: 12-16
Referee: Tim Roby
Attendance: 1,083
SCORING SEQUENCE: 0-4, 6-4, 12-4, 12-10, 12-16, 12-20, 12-24, 12-26, 12-30
