Birmingham Lions

No doubt about it, for both teams involved this was massive game. The UWE Bullets and Birmingham Lions have a longstanding rivalry and for the first time clashed at the Filton WISE 3G where the Bullets are undefeated. The game lived up to all expectations and was a feisty, hard-fought battle right from the onset. The first offensive snap of the game went to the Lions and with it came the first touchdown with second year running back Sarunas Babonas taking one 50 yards all the way to the house. UWE’s first offensive drive could not follow suit. The Birmingham defence came up with a big play and turned the ball over, leaving Varney et al. a short field, that Sarunas again took advantage of. The UWE offence failed to produce a drive again, whilst the UWE defence started to come out all guns blazing against the Lions. They brought anything between 4 and 8 rushers and managed to apply some pressure. Varney showed his class and managed to stay composed within the pocket to burn the UWE defence through the air. Through the game Matt Loxton x2, Ben Brown, John Zinkus and captain Andy Watson were recipients of touchdowns through the air. Birmingham even managed to move the ball on the floor towards the end of the game, culminating with Chika Kalu punching in a TD on Varney’s last drive of the game.

Safe to say UWE’s defensive gambling did not pay off in the slightest. The Bullets offence only managed to put together one lengthy drive, but showed themselves to have a to have good home-run ability with a breakaway run and a nice deep ball on separate drives. Testament must again be given to the underrated Birmingham defence who held firm throughout. They forced big plays to stop dead any UWE momentum that was being gathered. They played for the full 60 minutes even with substitutes on the field and did their coaches proud. UWE played hard but came up well short. The Lions will be happy with the result but will now be concentrating on their next BUAFL game, against the ever tough Hertfordshire Hurricanes.