Lions are stung late on in front of Johnno

Leicester Lions 21pts S Leicester .......... 24pts

LEICESTER Lions were hoping to put on a show on the day that Martin Johnson was in town but in the end it was Timo Koster who stole the show with a last-gasp try that gave South Leicester derby bragging rights.

That spelled disappointment for the Lions, who had invited Johnson along to officially open their new club house, and had fought back well after trailing by ten points at the break.

In the end though, their strong defence was breached at the death, and director of rugby Andy Key admitted it was a frustrating way to let it slip.

He said: “With the opening of the clubhouse and Johnno being here, we really wanted to put on a show and we gave it everything.

“He’s from Wigston so it was a homecoming of sorts, and we had him down at midday to open up the clubhouse before the game.

“Unfortunately it’s not been a winning show that we’ve put on, but both sides fought really hard and it was a good encounter which went down to the wire.

“Coming back the way we did after the break, it’s a little disappointing to let it slip the way we did.

“We showed some great defensive stuff for most of the game, but they managed to get a try under the posts at the end.

“You could see a team that won the week before and had that belief to go and get the win. We’ll keep working hard though.”

It was Lions who had made the quicker start, taking advantage of Sam McNulty’s yellow card to break the deadlock through Harry Key on just five minutes. And the centre converted his own try.

From there, South forced their way back into the game, first through a Ben Palmer penalty just before the quarter-hour.

That was followed by a score from No.8 Daniel Ireland, who drove over on 25 minutes with Palmer adding the extras.

And right on the stroke of half-time they looked to have made the break when Will Cave went over in the corner and Palmer’s conversion made it 17-7.

The Lions needed a response and they got one when Alex Wilcockson took a quick tap and caught the South defence on the hop to score.

Key’s conversion cut the deficit to three points just before the hour, and six minutes later the home side were in front.

It came as replacement Laurence Warren-West forced his way over just two minutes after coming on, with Key again slotting the extras. But just as it seemed the Lions would earn a victory on their big day, centre Koster popped up to drive over and stun the home crowd.

Key added: “I think we probably tried to force it a little too much. Defensively we were good but sometimes the final pass didn’t quite go to hand.

“It’s been a brilliant day though and we’ve got Matt Hampson along on Sunday to finish off a great weekend.”