Story courtesy of Daniel Andruczyk of Rugby League International Scores.

Though still wet and raining, a good crowd turned out to see the game. The Fight were the first to come out of the blocks and raced away to a 18-0 lead in the opening 20 minutes with one of the tries of the season coming from an individual effort from Joel Weeks. This stirred New Haven into some outstanding defense and held off conceding any more points. The fight went into the half 18-0 up and with their tails up. Crowd of 160 or so were treated to the Vixens doing their dancing and as I heard one person say “I can’t believe they are flipping around in the wet!” The crowd was very vocal and seemed to be quite partial to the home team.

The Second half saw a rejuvenated New Haven side. In an amazing 20 minutes of Rugby League they were able to pull the score back to within 6 scoring converted 2 tries. In the last 20 minutes the two teams went tit-for-tat on tries with scores being level at 22-22 at one point. The match have a lot of energy to it with the two teams having a good old fashion scrap from the scrum with the Referee having to step in and calm things down. It then came down to the last 10 minutes both teams pushing hard for the line. New Haven went in to go into the lead 26-22 and then about 2 minutes from the end the Fight went over to seal an absolute thriller 28-26.

The fans were celebrating, running onto the field to celebrate with their team. New Haven despite the disappointment go home with their heads held high knowing that they had just played in the game of the year! Talking to Ryan McGough and Anthony Meyers who are co-owners of the fight were ecstatic with the win “It’s great for the league, It’s a wonderful turnout, I can’t believe 200 people came out in a hurricane!” Anthony goes on to say “New Haven are a quality side, they have been in two championships, they wanted it in the second half and brought it back”. As for next season, they will start working on that tomorrow they say.