Luxembourg 0-50 Cyprus

The last game of the season saw the squad travel to the small nation of Luxembourg. Specific requirements made by the hosts complicated the travel arrangements and the squad travelling from Cyprus endured their normal tour of Europe - Trains, Planes and Automobiles spring to mind. Life was made a little more difficult as injuries and unavailabilities limited the selection but the training camp focussed on finishing the season on a high.

The Moufflons did not disappoint, having belted out the National Anthem, they set about their work with clinical precision, following some quality phase play, Andrew Binikos crossed the line within 2 minutes; a dream start. Cyprus continued to pressure the Luxembourg try line and following a series of scrums, AJ Pugh was quickest off the mark to pounce on a ball the came out of the back of the Luxembourg scrum, credit must go to the Cyprus tight 5 for applying so much pressure. With both tries converted, the score line was a very credible 0-14 after 18 minutes.

However, the game began to suffer from a lack of continuity, mistakes made, penalties conceded and the Cyprus try line was nearly breached following a series of unforced errors by the Cyprus backs. The game continued to stutter through a series of miss-aimed kicks but after a mistake by the Luxembourg backline, the Cyprus half backs of Maratheftis and Binikos took control of the game and through another good period of phase play, the ball was shipped wide to Andy Zacharia to go over in the bottom left corner.

The Luxembourg back line tried their hardest to move the ball around but their efforts were stopped dead in their tracks with some aggressive defending; the forwards applying pressure at the breakdown at every opportunity. Indeed it was a turnover ball that allowed Dimitri Maratheftis to put a beautifully weighted box kick into the 22 to be gathered by the chasing Rob Brown, who had an easy run in to score the bonus winning try shortly before the half time whistle. Half time score 0-26.

The second half started brightly when a couple of good breaks allowed a great off-load by Andreas Zacharia to Marko Mladenovic to go over and score.

With a number of changes made, it another magical moment from Cyprus to run out of their 22, with Andrew Binikos weaving his way through the Luxembourg defence offloading to Matt King, running in 30 meters to score. Indeed, another break by Binikos and Agathocleous pushed the attack just short of the line and it was powerhouse Hooker Tony Thoma who picked up the ball and forced his way over the line, with the try converted, it was not long before the final whistle went, another win 0-50.

Another clinical performance, where good phase play paid dividends. Once we can start to cut out the mistakes and stop conceding penalties, we may take a huge step forward for the future. All in all, a good game finishing the season on a high.

Man of the Match - Andrew Binikos

Squad as Follows:

1.          Dinu Floredan - Pafos Tigers
2.          Tony Thoma - Fylde (Captain)
3.          Christo Kasabi - Saracens Amateurs
4.          Andy Spring - Limassol Crusaders
5.          Lawrence Macrides - Chingford
6.          AJ Pugh - Pafos Tigers
7.          Marko Mladenovic - Limassol Crusaders
8.          George Agathocleous - Pafos Tigers
9.          Dimitri Maratheftis - Limassol Crusaders
10.          Andrew Binikos - Currie
11.          Rob Brown - Bournville
12.          Fidias Efthymiou - Pafos Tigers
13.          Reno Ioannides - Montlucon
14.          Andreas Zacharia - Lincoln University
15.          Matt King - Wilmslow
16.          Demetri Sofocleous - unattached #
17.          Kyriacos Vatikiotis - Trafford
18.          Frank Stavrou - Saracens Amateurs
19.          Dan Hatjiosif- Loughborough
20.          Dan Thrasivoulou - Derby
21.          Peter Ioulianou - unattached
22.          Antony Georgiou - Tamworth #

# – Denotes New Caps

Try’s: Binikos, Zacharia, Brown, Pugh, Mladenovic, King, Maratheftis, Tony Thoma

Conversions: Ioannides (5)