WESTHOUGHTON Lions Under-9s romped to a resounding 40-4 home victory over Leyland Warriors in a thrilling game of open rugby.

The Lions opened the scoring early with a typically powerful run from Jacob Lovett punching a hole in the Leyland line before he raced away to score the try.

That was followed closely by a Kieran Cooke try on the Lions’ next foray into the opponents’ half.

The Lions were looking good on the ball and defending well while building a little bit of momentum which was once more turned into points by a determined Cooper Bainbridge effort after a good Lions set.

Sam Dixon continued his recent great form with a good try before man-of-the-match Ben Grindley-Roberts ran the length of the field to score the Lions’ fifth of the game.

Leyland pulled a try back before Cook scored the last try of the half.

Zak Taylor converted pressure into points with a superb try which started another period of Lions dominance.

Bainbridge popped up for his second try of the game, followed closely by a second for Taylor and the final try of the game from Grindley-Roberts.

The u15s clinched a narrow victory over Langworthy in a clash of two well-matched sides.

Nathan Reidy barged his way over for the opening try following a handling error.

With the try out-wide the difficult conversion was missed but a platform had been built.

From the resulting kick-off the Lions found themselves in free-flowing mood that enabled James Teixeira to race 40 metres to touch-down under the posts. Matt Langhorne then tagged on the extras to make it 10-0.

Langworthy conceded a number of penalties to put themselves under considerable pressure in the latter stages of the half that ended in a Taylor Hyland try from an excellent passage of play down the right wing.

Langhorne made it 18-0 with what was to be the decisive try of the game after half-time, darting in at the corner from a scrum.

Langworthy would not lie down and hit back with a converted try followed by another which made the score 18-12.

Stefan Austin was voted players’ player of the match for the hard yards he gained while Owen France took the coaches’ award.