AUB registered an ultimately comfortable victory against flagging USJ, avenging their opening round defeat and remaining in touch with the top three as the Bank of Beirut Rugby League Championship takes a Christmas hiatus. The Wolves opened the scoring on 15 minutes when strong drives up the middle by prop Adel Kanso and second row Nimr Saliba (pictured, above) preceded a wide attack from which Mohamed Tawil scored in the corner. Ten minutes later they were in again following a USJ penalty, with Irish stand-off Daniel Egan scoring on his debut. USJ hit back just three minutes later when hard working prop Elie Gharios tore through a gap in AUB’s line and raced 25-metres, flirting with the dead ball line before touching down under the black dot.

With momentum having swung their way, the Saints made sure it swung right back to AUB in all possible haste. Having carelessly failed to secure the kick off, USJ’s red zone defence was found lacking as Espoir front row Mounir Finan scored a soft try. Instead of going into halftime trailing by just 4 a deflated USJ now trailed by 10, although an unsavoury incident on the hooter, with AUB wing Nader Dergham sin-binned for a late challenge on Saints fullback Christian Nadir, promised a fiery second period.

Having one less player didn’t blunt the Wolves’ attacking ambitions and within four minutes of the restart they had stretched their lead to 16 points. After Egan, searching for his double, was held up inches from the line hooker Karim Mourabet plunged over from acting-halfback to score another soft try. Trailing by a sizeable margin, as they have on most weeks, USJ then fought back, as they have on most weeks. But for a lack of clinical finishing they might have overturned the deficit, but whereas AUB took their chances USJ, spectacularly at times, did not. USJ’s experienced midfield had a mixed day, with errant passes spoiling some promising attacks, while on other occasions the Wolves showed a great deal of determination to protect their line against sustained waves of USJ pressure. Impressive Saints second row Ramy Rassy was held up short on two occasions before lock Danny Kazandjian scored to make it 22-10 with 29 minutes remaining. Minutes later, Kazandjian couldn’t take scrum half Faysal Jaber’s long cut out ball with a big overlap left begging outside him. Nadir, solid at the back all day, then knocked on in the act of scoring from dummy half before Jaber bombed the mother of all bombed tries when he passed to non-existent support when he was already over the line. That would have put USJ to within one score but instead, in another huge momentum swing, it brought the curtain down on any late comeback. Wael Harb, the championship’s leading scorer, who was otherwise well looked after by USJ, then added to his 9 tries by scoring on the hooter to put the icing on AUB’s cake.