Last Saturday the Lions hosted the Cornwall final towards the National Vase against fellow Cornwall 1 side Veor; Liskeard were without several senior players including line out specialists Tom Blake and Yestin Hutchings, centre Mark Moody and full back Kieran Underhill were also amongst the missing players, Veor fielded a big, strong physical side.
Eight minutes were on the clock when the first chance of points came; this fell to Liskeard after a visiting player was pinged for offside and fly half Josh Elliott kicked the points. Six minutes later, following a ruck the first try was scored when home centre Naita Timoci received the ball and drove through under the posts and Elliott added the extras for a 10 point cushion. On 22 minutes, following sustained pressure Veor put points on the board with a converted try. On 27 minutes following excellent play by the Liskeard pack the ball was released to the backs and with quick passing young wing Billy Edwards received the ball on the halfway line, opened the burners and raced through for a try with Elliott again adding the extras. The final minutes of the half were a little hectic with a player from each side going to the sin-bin and then a lengthy stoppage following an injury to tight-head prop Nathan Glover who was eventually stretchered off. In injury a flurry of points came firstly with a converted try by Veor after a scrum in our 22 and then from a scrum in the Veor half of the field Liskeard secured the ball released it to the backs and again with swift passing the ball reached Edwards on the 10 metre line for him to race through for his second try and Elliott again added the extras for a half time score of 24-14.
Into the second half and the Lions thought they had increased their lead when Timoci broke through and passed to flanker Mark Goldsmith to race through from 30 metres but he was tackled in the act of scoring and the referee deemed that the ball was held up and the chance went begging. Then on 65 minutes the visitors were awarded a penalty that was kicked to narrow the deficit three minutes later Veor broke clear to score an unconverted try in the corner to make it 24-22. On 70 minutes Liskeard were awarded a penalty on 38 metres from the Veor line and Elliott kicked this to set up a nail-biting last ten minutes. Veor were then awarded a penalty following a collapsed scrum this was kicked to narrow the deficit to two points. With minutes left on the clock Liskeard failed to field a kick ahead and from this Veor were awarded another penalty that was also kicked to give them the narrowest of victories at 27-28; best of luck to Veor in the next round.
The next fixture for the Lions is the league opening game away at Illogan this Saturday the kick off time is yet to be arranged.