The Match in a Tweet

Ruthless Start.

The Giants went into their final clash with the Haryana Steelers making one change to the lineup. South Korean raider Dong Geon Lee was brought into the lineup in place of Ajay Kumar. With the first raid of the game Sachin Tanwar was able to get a running hand touch on their captain Monu Goyat. K Prapanjan was on fire from get go as he escaped a defender with an excellent dupki to add a Super Raid to his name. We opened the floodgates as we inflicted an all-out on them with a tackle by Parvesh Bhainswal to extend our lead to 7 points.

Soon after the all-out, K Prapanjan was yet again able to get two points for us as he was making his mark in the game with 7 points to his name. He was amply supported by Sachin who was using his speed and escaping abilities to maximum effect. It was a dominant performance from our raiders as they scored a total of 13 points with just 12 minutes of action in the match. Our defenders were not far behind as we raced off to 10 points lead with 7 minutes to play in the half.

With the first Do-or-Die raid of the match, Sachin Tanwar demonstrated his speed and escaped an attempted ankle hold on him to give us a bonus and a touch point. With Haryana reducing us to two players on mat, it was Sunil Kumar who got hold off Vikash Kandola to avoid an all-out. With the next raid Dong Geon Lee was able to get two more points for us and revived two more players. With last few minutes in the half it was our captain Sunil Kumar who got two back to back excellent tackles on Vikash and Monu to go into the half with a comfortable lead of 12 points.

Complete dominance

It was a slow start to the second half for us as there was a missed tackle by Parvesh Bhainswal and Sachin not being able to escape a tackle. But Sachin Vittala dived on the ankles of Naveen Kumar to give us our first point of the half. In the first half it was our raiders providing us with points but at the start of the second half it was our defence stepping up to keep Haryana from making a comeback.

When we needed some raid points it was Hadi Oshtorak who went in for a raid and was able to reach to the centerline to give us two more points. With only one player on the mat for Haryana, it was Sunil Kumar who dashed him out of the mat to get the second all-out for us. It was a dominating performance on both ends of the mat by our players as Sachin Tanwar raced to a Super 10 before K Prapanjan who was on 9 points. Whereas, Sunil and Parvesh both had 4 tackle points of their own. One can say it was a team performance by our Giants as we led by 17 points with 7 minutes to play!

Haryana was able to inflict an all-out on us with 4 minutes to play and cut our lead down to 8 points. K Prapanjan was able complete consecutive Super 10s and ended the match with 12 points to his name being awarded the ‘Raider of the Match.’

The match ended with our Giants scoring yet another victory over Haryana Steelers by 10 points.