Birmingham Lions American Football

Match Report to follow

The Birmingham Lions have been busy over the Christmas holidays, organising partnerships with Predator nutrition and EP sports. Predator nutrition is Europe’s largest sports supplements retailer and are providing the team with discounted supplements; whilst EP sports are supplying the team with state of the art equipment at the most reasonable prices available in the UK. The Lions are back working hard ready for the remaining games of the regular season. Next up is a tough matchup away at the UWE Bullets, who will no doubt be keen for revenge after being knocked out of the playoffs in Birmingham last year.

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The Lions started as they meant to go on against a first year Worcester side, with Sarunas Babonas breaking an inside run for a 33 yards with the first play of the game, after the Birmingham D set up the offense in good field position. With Birmingham’s next 3 drives, in the first quarter, Ben Brown caught two passes that resulted in touchdowns, along with veteran receiver John Zinkus getting a nice ball from Tristan Varney on a precise corner route.

Birmingham’s defense had another flawless performance. Worcester failed to get past the line of scrimmage in the game and there only first down came from an unnecessary roughness penalty. The Lions solid defense also recovered a few fumbles throughout the game to leave the offense with a short field and an ever-higher chance of scoring. Birmingham scored with every drive in the first half, with Shane McNeil getting two nice runs, with Andy Watson and Chika Kalu chipping in with one a piece.

The second half of the game saw many rookies get game experience for the Lions, with the score board still ticking over. Shane McNeil added another in the second half and Sope Disiru got his first TD of the season on the ground. Birmingham’s special teams came to play also, with Dan Conroy returning a punt 55 yards for a TD. Dan Conroy also found himself on the end of a 2 point conversion by John Zinkus as Birmingham tried to rep all elements of their game. All in all it was a great performance from Birmingham but credit to Worcester who kept fighting. Play stopped about half way through the fourth quarter as a Worcester player was injured, with the ambulance crew deciding to take him to hospital. Birmingham move to 4-0  with a convincing victory and the team starting to click on all sides of the football.

The Lions went on the road for the first time this year with high hopes of moving to 3-0 following things starting to click offensively. Birmingham received the ball with the opening kick off, but the Lions offence didn’t even see it, Dan Conroy took the ball back to the house again, shrugging off multiple tacklers in the process. The Knights’ opening drive produced a couple of first downs, with some well disguised running passes and short completions helping to move the chains. Eventually the ball was punted back to Birmingham, who failed to adjust to Readings defence, turning the ball over on downs after coming up just short on fourth down. Birmingham’s defence held strong on the next drive, but the resulting punt left the Lions offence backed right up with a long field ahead of them. But this wasn’t enough to stop Birmingham, who went the length of the field through a well-constructed drive – with some patient running from Sarunas Babonas and some short completions from Tristan Varney. The Lions punched it in through a nice grab from Lions rookie Ben Brown, to take the score to 14-0.

Just as it looked like the floodgates may break open, Reading fought back, when a high ball over the middle was caught by a Knights receiver in heavy traffic, which he then ran into the end zone with. (PAT was unsuccessful). Furthermore, the next Lions drive ended in disaster, as a botched screenplay, ended up with Tristan allegedly back pedalling into his own end zone – where he was tackled for a safety, taking the scores to 14-8. This proved the catalyst for the Lions O to really start firing. The remainder of the first half consisted of quick drives from the Lions, with Reading unable to live with the tempo, resulting in big plays. Notably multiple large outside runs from Sarunas and a couple of nice fade’s completed to Ben Brown; both players finished with 2 touchdowns on the day.

The second half saw much more of the same. Chika Kalu scored two touchdowns on the day, and Andy Watson got on the score sheet for the third week in a row. The Birmingham defence was holding Reading to mostly three and outs, with another great performance from the D-line, shutting down most runs up the middle and putting the Reading QB under constant pressure to get the ball off quickly. What was most notable and good to see is that Birmingham got all rookie’s on for game experience – which will be really important in the long run. Birmingham has a bye-week next week, followed by a game against a first year team Worcester, where Birmingham will again be looking to get rookies on for more game experience.

Come week 2, the Birmingham Lions were at home again to a physical, well-drilled Oxford Cavalier’s side. The lions won the toss and chose to receive, with the ensuing kick illegally going out of bounds – giving the Lions possession on the 40 – in good field position. On the first drive the Lions moved the ball nicely, with some accurate passing from Tristan Varney and some good, hard running from Sarunas Babonas. The drive continued all the way to the end zone, nearly with a TD through the air to Ben Brown (if not for a case of PI) but then through an outside run from Sarunas. The following PAT was good, putting the Lions up 7-0. The Cavalier’s found it very difficult to move the ball consistently – in truth throughout the whole game. They had some luck with halfback draw’s and one step drop short completion but the Lions’ defense on the large shut everything down. Sacks from Bessala de Besbeck, Kyle Burrows, Craig Alexander, Will Watkiss and Stuart Payne throughout the course of the game hindered Oxford’s chances of putting together a sustained drive massively. Pressure mounted in the 2nd quarter, forcing a punt from deep in Oxfords’ half – which was snapped over the kickers head, then knocked out for the back of the end zone for a safety – resulting in the score moving to 9-0. Birmingham’s offense in the meantime was moving the ball but failing to punch it in when it mattered, resulting in a long distance field goal that narrowly went wide. Oxford went three and out on the next possession, with the punt back to Birmingham being returned for a touchdown by second year player Dan Conroy, whose score was converted giving a 16-0 score-line. Sides traded possession until the end of the half, with an interception coming off the last play of the half with Birmingham pushing hard for extra points.

The second half signaled the beginning of an Oxford fight back. Early on they broke a draw play for over 60 yards, resulting in a first and goal, which they eventually converted through a short completion after a QB rollout – the PAT was blocked. Birmingham came out and responded with a good drive, with rookie running back Chika Kalu making some big plays up the middle and on the edge, followed by a big screen from Andy Watson, leaving Birmingham with another first and goal. However Oxfords goal line D proved formidable opposition yet again by holding the Lions to a field goal, taking the score to 19-6. Oxfords next possession was uneventful but Birminghams following drive ended prematurely also – with a tipped ball over the middle that Oxford returned to the Lions’ red zone. Oxford looked to be going nowhere, but then a half back pass put them right back within scoring range. But Birminghams defense made another statement recovering a fumble (Charlie Straker-Nesbitt) to regain possession for Varney et al. Birmingham then managed to string another nice drive together, with big receiving plays coming from John Zinkus and Andy Watson, some solid running, and then a completion to Matt Loxton in the end zone (PAT added successfully). Neither offence from then on in managed to put anything substantial together, leaving a final score line of 26-6. Birmingham got the W but still have a lot to.

Please see the link for the game report.

http://www.redbrickonline.co.uk/sports/brum-overcome-aces-in-xplosive-encounter/

http://www.redbrickonline.co.uk/sports/xplosion-to-go-off-with-a-bang/

The Lions are proud to once again present xpLosION to kick-off the 2009 BUAFL season

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