MATCH REPORT: Lions pipped at the post by Derby
Peterborough Lions suffered a heart-breaking defeat in their opening National League match of the season today (September 3).
The city side lost 21-20 at Bretton Park after conceding a try in the last minute to Division Three rivals Derby.
But there were no complaints from the Lions hierarchy. Chairman Andy Moore admitted his side didn’t play as well as he knows they can and said Derby deserved their victory.
“Take nothing away from Derby. They are new to this league having won promotion last season and they were certainly up for it. They definitely played with a lot more fire in their bellies than we did in the first half,” said Moore.
“We trailed 16-5 at the break but did well to get back into it and were leading 20-16 with a couple of minutes to go.
“But then they nicked it with a late try from a scrum and that was so disappointing, especially as we had a big crowd of over 300 in.
“However, although disappointed, I’m not distraught because I know we’ve got the quality within our squad to do so much better.
“We just didn’t play well enough as a team today. We made a very slow start and that ultimately cost us.
“It’s been a wake-up call for us but the Lions will come roaring back and we’ll be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.”
Full-back Joe Andresen, last season’s first team fly-half at Borough, crossed for the Lions first-half try and then after the break it was scrum-half Tom Aviss and prop Ben Howerd who crossed for tries with Nico Defeo adding a conversion and a penalty to put the Lions ahead.
And that was a good effort seeing as they were twice down to 14 men for 10 minutes following the sin-binning of second row Marius Andrijauskas and hooker Jack Lewis.
It was a great fightback but justice was probably seen to be done in the end.