TITANS TORMENT TIGERS

Glasgow Tigers 0 Manchester Titans 20

It was not a case of many happy returns for the Glasgow Tigers at the weekend on their first game back at Lochinch Park, suffering their first loss of the campaign against Manchester Titans.

Their defense may have been putting in tackles worthy of registering on the Richter scale, but that was not enough for the Glasgow Tigers to contain a well organised Manchester offensive unit who in the end ran out a comfortable 20-0 victory.

The Titans were a major force in the Division during the regular season last year, but faced some close battles against the Tigers and even though there had been some personnel changes in the close season expectations were high for more of the same.

And after an opening win over the Clyde Valley Blackhawks, the Tigers were looking to keep the momentum going on the first game of the season back at their new base for 2009.

After an ineffective opening drive, the home side punted away possession deep in the Titans half and showed how fired up they were to take fully points from this game with some ferocious tackling on the Titans giving their offense little room for manoeuvre.

But the signs were there that they were going to have less that productive day on offense when they fumbled away possession.

And they were soon punished for the turnover when quarterback Alan Mead split the Tigers rear guard with a precision pass up the middle to Chris Heap for the opening touchdown.

Despite an intense level of play their remained no change in the scoring till Mead almost pulled of a repeat of the move that caught the Tigers off guard during the first period, firing another precision pass to Heap but was stopped inches short of the goal line.

Minutes later the visitors finished the move off when Willie "The Bus"  Wakatega exposed a gap on the near side to run in a well worked six points, with Phillip Fitzpatrick running in a successful conversion attempt for a 14-0 lead.

The Tigers continued to hit the Titans hard with some ferocious tackling but the Titans caught the Glasgow side off guard when Mead launched a deep pass to Mark Squires who was downed at the 10 yard line.

On the next Titans drive, the Tigers dug deep into their reserves forcing the visitor to go for a field goal attempt which was blocked.

Going into the final period, the Tigers offensive headaches continued and made some adjustments to their line up with Matt McCusker taking over at quarterback , but the home side struggled to put any real pressure on the Manchester goal line.

And as the minutes continued to tick away, the game was running away from the Tigers, but they continued to fight for their pride and gave the English side something to think about when Alan Mead tried to kill the game off following another turnover, but blew the opportunity when his skyward pass fell into the hands of Tigers defensive back 91 ( Name to be confirmed)

However the Tigers had not looked like scoring the whole game and not surprisingly the drive stalled once again.

Then with minutes of the game remaining, the Titans drove the final nail in the Tigers coffin, when Squires ran 2/3 the length of the field to make it 20 unanswered points.