In a rematch of last year’s MLR Championship in Bridgeview, Ill., the Legion had a lead and then they didn’t against the New England Free Jacks. Just like last year, their late bid for a comeback fell just short in a 24-23 defeat.
• Danny Lee opened his postgame interview with praise for the first half: “I think we controlled the first half nicely, put some points on the scoreboard and did what we had trained and performed pretty well, I thought.”
“Then straight after halftime we took the foot off the accelerator and we let in some soft drives. They controlled the next 20 minutes and put us on the back foot and we struggled to come back out of that apart from, you know, the last 10 minutes. The last 10 minutes the boys got stuck in, held on to the ball, but again, just not patient enough and not accurate enough in the attack zone. Possibly turned over the ball two or three times when we could have been able to apply a bit more pressure and turn the scoreboard into some more points for us.”
“They played for 80-whatever-it-was minutes. 82, 83, 84 minutes, and you know, you got to give it to them around their character but I think you put the character on the back of some of our mistakes (and) shoot yourselves in the foot at times. So I’m pleased with the character but obviously not the scoreboard.”
• The Legion had a 13-3 lead to start the second half, but a 41st minute try put the Free Jacks within three and a 49th minute try gave them their first lead of the match.
“I suppose that maybe the guys are a little bit asleep after halftime,” Lee said after the match. “We said that it wasn’t where we needed to be going to the second half and that we needed to go up another level but obviously just got punched in the face pretty much straight after halftime and went bang bang, and we got into a position (where) we were chasing the game.
“New England’s a good side. They definitely changed the way that they approached their second half and a little bit like the final last year where they just turned the tempo up and decided to try and move the ball as quick as possible into space, but we knew that was coming. So we didn’t adapt quick enough and yeah, we got caught behind the eight ball there that first 10 minutes after halftime and ending up chasing the game.”
• Full article coming soon.