CONFERENCE LEAGUE SOUTH: VALLEY COUGARS 16 LONDON CHARGERS 23

Valley Cougars were left disappointed in their first Conference League South match of the season this Saturday as they went down 23-16 to London Chargers.

London, who were promoted from the London Conference this year after winning the Harry Jepson Trophy in 2015, showed why they’ve been a threat in the south over the last few years, by going into a 16-0 lead, the third try from Tala Petelo, who played in South Wales last year, after Cougars’ Jamie Marsh had been given a yellow card.

Joe Briggs and Timmy Dudley had scored the Chargers’ first two with Phil Lyon’s kicks improving the first and three tries.

Cougars scored through Ben Jones late in the first half, converting himself to make it 6-16 at the break and added another through Rhys Jones early after the interval bring the score back to 10-16.

It then became a battle for the next try and one that the London side eventually got, Lyon in the 67^th minute, converting it himself.

The game wasn’t over yet. Cougars pulled another back via Marsh three minutes later making it a dramatic last ten minutes.

But the final kick of the game was from former London Skolars’ and Maltese international scrum-half Danny Burke, who kicked a drop-goal to extend London’s lead.

Cougars’ captain Scott Britton feels that their performance in the first 25 minutes was what eventually cost them the game.

“It’s a really disappointing result to start the season,” he said. “But we will re-group and be ready to go again next time up.

“The league is a lot stronger this year and you’re not going to be able to give anyone a 16 point head start before you wake up.

“Once we settled, we were on top for large parts of the game and we can take plenty of positives from the game. Take nothing away from London, they came down and deserved their win, but if a few 50-50 decisions had gone our way, we could have taken the points just as easily.”