Nigeria Police Rugby Club at the weekend showed their determination wrest the South West league from the grips of Cowrie RFC when they beat the defending champion 8-7 at the National Stadium, Lagos.
Nigeria Police opened scores in the early minutes of the tie through a penalty taken by David, which earned the team 3 points. Cowrie RFC pushed hard to level scores but solid defending by the Nigeria Police proved difficult to break in the first half.
When the teams regrouped in the second stanza, Nigeria Police tried hard to increase the tally, but the defending champions rebuffed them. A few minutes later, Cowrie RFC and Black Stallions’ captain, Onoru Jato capitalised on a mistake in Nigeria Police’s backline to score a beautiful try, which earned Cowrie RFC 5 points. A conversion by Hassan Muhammed increased Cowrie RFC’s tally to seven points.
Undeterred by the setback, the Police team scored a beautiful try towards the end of the match through Malik Salihu to take the scoreline to 8-7 advantage Nigeria Police.
Speaking after the league game, Cowrie captain, Jato said the result has shown that there are no pushovers in the Nigeria Rugby league.“The game was tough. We put in our best to win but it is unfortunate that it ended like this. “Most of the rugby players are workers, coming all out to give a beautiful display of rugby shows clearly that the future is bright for Nigerian rugby.“Cowrie RF C would work hard to win the other games to retain the league title,” he said.
