Albion edge out Students as Cox makes refereeing history

AS SARA COX became the first female to referee in National One history, Loughborough more than made amends for their heavy away defeat to Plymouth in October with a hard-fought loss against the second-place side.

In the opening ten minutes, Albion struggled to get out their own half as Loughborough piled on the pressure in attack and seemed unbreakable in defence. Big carries by Luke Frost and James Lasis got Loughborough closer to the whitewash.

The team in purple were eventually rewarded for their relentless pressure with a try after a textbook driving maul saw Jake Kerr go over the line, with Will Kaye converting.

Albion then started to look dangerous in attack and earned a penalty just to the right of the posts four minutes after the try that Matt Shepherd knocked over. Three minute later, the home side saw a penalty attempt of their own drift wide.

It then took Albion three near misses to finally get over the line. With both packs sucked in, an inside crash ball saw Matt Crosscombe go over the line and put the visitors ahead.

This seemed to spark the students into life and with energy levels rejuvenated, Loughborough stepped up their attack once more and found themselves sat comfortably inside the visitors’ half. Another break by Samuel Pointon created chaos in the Albion defensive line, ending in another

penalty made for Kaye just before half-time.

The opening 15 minutes after the break saw possession swing like a pendulum and spilt ball became frequent despite the mild, dry conditions.

It was the home side, however, who made the first significant attack but a knock on out wide prevented them from scoring. Instead, the first points of the second half came from Shepherd’s boot, which left the sides tied at 13 points apiece.

The drama intensified in the final eight minutes as Herbie Stupple crashed over the line following a break by Albion in the midfield.

Shepherd made the conversion and the visitors were buoyed, relentlessly piling forward, but Lough- borough held them off to spark a last-gasp comeback that fell just short.

In the final play of the game, a superb ball by Richie Lewis and line taken by the outstanding Kaye saw an 80-metre sprint all the way to the Albion line by the full-back.

Unfortunately, he could not quite finish the job and a missed conversion saw Albion take the win.