CSU kept pace with Orange City throughout most of their Blowes Clothing Cup contest on Saturday but they couldn’t keep up with the Lions for the full 80 minutes.
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CSU went down 36-21 at University Oval to leave themselves still searching for a breakthrough win this season.
Penalties and missed tackles began to pile up against CSU in the second half and the Lions took full advantage.
CSU got the score back to 19-14 early in the second half but from that point on the home side lost their way.
“Our defence was excellent in the first half. We used the ball well and we had our structure. In the second half we didn’t,” CSU coach Scott Hatch said.
“We had a lot of injuries along the way, so with the replacements you do lose a bit of that structure. There was no lack of heart out there, they just didn’t stick to the plan.”
The Lions spent the opening stages of the clash camped in their own half but once they worked their way to the other end they made a breakthrough.
CSU produced some strong defence on their own line but a dummy from Tom Nell allowed him to find the opening points 10 minutes in.
The score went out to 12-0 when Sam Coote went over, with the extra points added by Duncan Young.
Half an hour into the match CSU got their first good opportunity to attack deep in the Lions territory and they made the most of it.
Jack Keppel got the home crowd cheering when he brought the margin back to five.
Their joy was short lived as Barton Young finished off a City break down the right wing to take the score out to 19-7 at half-time.
City were just metres shy of the CSU try line five minutes into the new half but they coughed the ball up.
The punishment was CSU’s Chris Porter dashing over 80 metres to down the wing to score.
Moey Amone responded quickly with a try for the Lions.
A fight broke out with the score at 24-14 and resulted in three players leaving the field – two for City and one for CSU.
Despite the number disadvantage the visitors still found a try through Jackson Coote – a decisive blow for the students.
Amone found his second try through some tired CSU defence before the hosts picked up a consolation try in the dying minutes thanks to Lachie Robinson.
“We haven’t had the same team for two weeks running yet so it takes the first half of footy sometimes to get to know each other. Then unfortunately we lost Sam Dwyer towards the end of the first half,” City coach Steve Hamson said.
“They battled through it. It was good to get a win for a change. We really needed that.”
