In the opening minutes of the game at Balamand, the home side Razorbacks started badly, losing front row forward John El Haiby to a broken leg on only the second tackle of the game. Luckily for coach Mohammed Habbous, he was able to welcome back Cedars international front row Amin Massarani from a long injury lay-off and play-maker Lubnan Alamuddine. The AUB Wolves also welcomed back Adel Kanso, the prop forward making his return from a broking finger, but were without outside backs Megho Keychian, Hashem el Hoss and Mazen Abo Chalbeck, all injured.

It took 15 minutes for a team to score with both teams in a tug of war to get off the mark first. The Razorbacks struck through international Gilbert Haydamous scoring just inside the corner post, side-stepping inexperienced Wolves winger John Mezher. Then, with AUB desperately trying to defend the line in spite of repeat 

penalties in their red zone for offside, Omar Darwiche burst through two defenders to score on the 35th minute, with Wael Tawil missing both conversions. For the next 15 minutes the Wolves desperately tried to get back into the game but repeatedly dropped the ball in the misty conditions as the first half closed, 8-0 to Balamand.

The second half saw the Wolves starting to dominate the game, and they were soon back in contention from an enterprising Karim Mourabet third tackle kick. With no fullback at home, speedy Wolves centre Wael Harb outran the cover to recover the ball and score under the 

posts in the 50th minute. Wael Baraket's conversion made it 8-6. The Wolves struck again within three minutes as danger man Harb dazzled the spectators with his speed after side-stepping through the Razorbacks and racing in from 40 metres to score under the posts. Baraket's second conversion made it 10-8 to AUB.

The lead didn't last for long, though. The Wolves failed to secure the kick off, and the Razorbacks grasped the opportunity to retake the lead through Maassarani's powerful run to the corner. Tawil's third successive failure with the boot failed to extend the lead to anything more than two points. The Wolves' Liban Espoir tourist, second row Mohammed Zaweel, then dropped the ball inside his own 20-metres, giving the Razorbacks another prime attacking position, from which they took full advantage, with Darwiche scoring despite AUB's protests over a possible forward pass. Tawil's first kick of the night made it 18-10.

With the Razorbacks exhausted the game swung back to the wolves and in the 70^th minute Wael Baraket used Kanso as a dummy runner, drawing defenders and creating a gap for him to score under the posts and convert his own try, setting up a tense last ten minutes. In a desperate finale, the Razorbacks could only defend their line as AUB threw everything at them, and in one final moment of high drama Kanso dropped the greasy ball over the try-line with barely 30 seconds left on the clock.