LAU avoided setting a new team record for the poorest start to a season, breaking their duck after three successive losses and at the same time keeping alive their hopes for a berth in the Spring Championship finale, a game they have not missed out on in all four previous editions. The green and whites' runaway victory over AUB on Saturday, on the back of 36 unanswered second half points, means they will have to beat Balamand twice and hope an advantageous for-and-against does the rest. Four tries in the final quarter of the match certainly helped in that department as AUB demonstrated gross tactical naivety to gift-wrap the match and place it, ribbons and all, in LAU's lap.

Having shown a lot of character to overhaul LAU's two-try opening salvo and go into the break 18-12 up, the Wolves spectacularly self-destructed. They eschewed field position on two successive kick offs, inexplicably choosing to kick short yet failing to reach ten-metres. As a result they were forced to defend waves of Immortals charges deep in their own half, with LAU taking maximum advantage through tries to Ibrahim Ballout and Robin Hachache. Those two strikes sandwiched an Allen Khoury try that stemmed from yet another unforced AUB error, with second row Nimr Saliba fumbling a routine hit up on his own 40-metre line. In a match where all 11 tries were converted, that 18-point barrage proved too much for the Corniche-siders, who, having put in a strong defensive stint, wilted in the late afternoon Bhamdoun heat.

AUB's task was made that much more difficult following the loss of their chief strike weapon, quicksilver centre Wael Harb, who, having used his blazing speed to score in the 33^rd and 36^th minute, was forced to take a peripheral role after taking a knock early in the second period. The contrast in AUB's attacking capacity was marked: in the first half they were able to make good ground and looked likely to score at any moment, yet in the second they seldom had an attacking opportunity worthy of mention. Unluckily for them they did not have an opponent equally as charitable, with LAU maintaining the pressure against an increasingly battle-worn and depleted Wolves side which finished the game with barely thirteen fit men. Ballout completed his hat-trick on 65 minutes, bursting through a gap on Rudi Hachache's shoulder – a double act that has become a feature of LAU's attack - then Jawad Fakih scored a carbon copy seventh LAU try, again off Hachache's shoulder down the left hand channel, before George Rahal finished off proceedings with two minutes to go.

LAU have the bye to prepare for the crucial 19 May home showdown with Balamand, while AUB need to beat Club Libanais next Saturday to keep alive their hopes.

Aside from the Immortals, Saturday's other beneficiary were Al-Galaticos, who qualified for a historic first ever final courtesy of AUB dropping points. In a positive sign for the game, CL's final berth breaks the trilateral monopoly of the Balamand-AUB-LAU axis extant since the beginning of the Lebanese championship ten seasons ago, with none of now defunct Army, NDU or USEK teams having proved capable of gaining membership into that elite club.