The BARLA Great Britain Emerging Young Lions opened their historic tour of Germany with a victory over the German counterparts with an emphatic thirteen try salvo after leading 24-0 at the break. One of the many highlights included a quarteT of tries from winger Liam Marshall (Wigan St Patricks) with him scoring a first half treble in 19 minutes.

The Lions travelled the small distance from Heidelberg to the Handschuhsheim rugby clubs to play against Germany Under-20s. In previous years the Lions have found the games physically less challenging than the ones they are used to playing back home, but they were given a shock early on against a big German pack.

The game was scoreless until 16 minutes, when James Samme (Dewsbury Moor), hit a really good line and split the right edge of the German defence. Samme powered his way down the field escaping the reach of the German fullback to score to make it 4-0.

Marshall scored his opening try with another nice finish, this time underneath the posts and captain Joe Prior (Wigan St Patricks) conversion made 10-0 after 21minutes. Marshalls second try came minutes later after a lovely long, floating pass by Prior over the heads of the Germanys New Zealand born centre.

The Lions were in control and Jordan Whippey (King Cross Park) crashed over the line for another unconverted try and it was 18-0 after 32minutes. Marshall completed his hat-trick just before half time following a break made in the centre of the field by Prior, who very calmly looked for support in Marshall, who caught the ball and outpaced the full back. The try was successfully converted with the Lions taking a 0-24 half time lead.

The second half proved to be even more difficult for the home side who were now looking a lot less match fit than the BARLA side. The effort and power the Germans had exerted in the first half was showing, but their efforts and high workload didn’t stop throughout a procession of BARLA tries. 

Whippey had the last say in the game after finishing a great team try with the ball going through numerous pairs of hands before he crashed over. Marshall kicked a successful conversion from the touchline making for a 68-0 win.

GERMANY U20
Kai Jansen, Luis Marin, Vincent Spies, Paul Rottwitz, Nicklas Heiss, Abraham Greshem, Marco Dorzbacher, Felix Martel, Oliver Seelinger, Marcel Danzer, Kevin Klein, Florian Rambow, Rettstedt Muller. Subs: Sean Walker, Mawuli Amefia, Max Werntz

BARLA YOUNG LIONS
Jack Lazenby, Liam Marshall, Jordan Whippy, Luke Davison, Harrison Brown, Joe Bold, Joe Prior, (Capt), Liam Naughton, Jason Todd, Jamie Porter,  Josh Hunter, Jamie Samme, Tom Wilkinson, Subs: Lewis Lord, Curtis Edwards-Hampson, Luke Robinson, Rob Hamon