Match Report

Hainault Bulldogs claimed the London ARL title at their first attempt with a hard-fought victory against a strong Raiders team. The Bulldogs, as they have done all season, started the stronger of the two sides, putting in some massive hits on the big Raiders pack, forcing them to make errors in their first two sets of six. Once the Bulldogs got ball in hand they showed that they were not afraid to throw it around and were deservedly rewarded with a try after ten minutes when stand-in skipper Ray Lujerri darted through the Raiders defence, scored under the posts and converted to give the Bulldogs an early 6-0 lead.

The inspirational Lujerri then broke the Raiders defence once again and fed the ball on to speedy winger Richard Batten who used his pace to evade three tacklers before finishing off a great try as the Bulldogs looked good at 10-0. It was then the turn of the try-scoring machine, centre Dan Murphy, who latched on to a pass from second row Mark Buxey and raced 40 metres to score under the posts, with Lujerri converting to make it 16-0 at the end of a one-sided half.

Raiders fought back after the break and were duly rewarded with an unconverted try eight minutes into the second half to reduce the arrears to 12 points. The Colchester outfit tried in vain to make more of an impression but were ultimately thwarted and as their legs tired, Bulldogs took advantage as full-back Duffy ran 60 metres to score, with Lujerri adding the extras for 22-4. Further tries followed from the impressive Joe Green and a second for Lujerri which brought his tally for the afternoon to 16 points as the Bulldogs sealed the game 30-4.