Hornets player and England Coach Richard Agar gets that winning feeling.England students secured rugby league’s first ever European Cup title in the City of Kazan in the former Soviet state of Tartastan on Saturday afternoon beating the hosts by 34 points to 16.
A below par first-half performance from England was turned around by the half back combination of Paul Thorman and Germaine Coleman, and this fantastic performance from seventeen year old Thorman earned him the title of half back of the tournament. .
England went behind early in the game, and took some time to recover, with Michail Mitrafanov grabbing an interception try on the left hand side of the field after seventeen minutes. .
Jermaine Coleman missed a penalty that would have brought the English back into contention as half time approached, and fullback Andy Poynter had a try disallowed that would have given England a narrow half-time lead. .
But England opened the second half with the determination that they have played with for all this Europa Cup and when Poynter eventually scored to put England in front for the first time, they lifted their game to the level that they had played to in their opening games. .
Poynter was on the scoresheet again just three minutes later. A break by Robert Ilyasov was halted on the edge of the English red zone and in the resulting English set of six, they advanced up the field into the opposition half, Coleman set up the field position and Thorman provided the gap for the full-back to collect his second try of the game. .
And when Geordie team-mates, Peers and Thorman combined to make the score 10-28 halfway through the second-half, the result was never going to be in doubt. .
Anthony Howcroft collected his first try of the game ten minutes before the end and Tartarstan scored a consolation try just on the whistle, but it was too late for the Tartars who’s contribution to this tournament both on and off the field deserves much wider recognition. .
Agar Said: “That was a fantastic performance from the team. I thought that we played exactly as we wanted to, and we stuck to the plan that we had agreed and it paid dividends for us. “ “I would like to thank all the players for the effort that they have put in over the last few weeks, it has been fantastic.