LAU overcame a 30-16 deficit to pip luckless Jounieh 34-30 and stretch their lead at the top of the Bank of Beirut Rugby League Championship to three points. Grudgingly entering life this season without the inimitable Rudy Hachache, serving the first of his ten-match ban, and with front row Robin Hachache and club captain Mohamed Jamil unavailable, LAU were in need of finding new inspiration – and if new inspiration didn’t just find them, not so much tapping them diffidently on the shoulder but slapping them square in the face in the form of wunderkind scrum half Karim Jamal.

The precociously talented 18-year-old, who has played a handful of games for LAU in previous seasons, got his official life as an Immortal off to a Persian Empire-sized start, scoring 20-points and displaying a full range of skills, with his boot, passing and quick feet too much for an Al-Galacticos side that couldn’t register a point for the final 26 minutes. They, too, were under-strength, missing injured backs Wissam Chamy, Gaby Haddad, Khodr Salameh, Mario Eid and Danny Chemaly, and suspended forwards Nicolas Chammas and Elie Shebbek, but injuries - and Jamal - notwithstanding, Jounieh, who dominated up front all day, had the game in their grasp. Leading 12-0 and then 30-16 they failed to put LAU away as Jamal, working well with five-eighth Jad Hashem, cut them to shreds, jinking his way over for the two second-half tries that put them back within striking distance before Hashem scored the clincher in the 69^th minute. The ubiquitous Jamal had also snuffed out two excellent Al-Galacticos attacks by intercepting passes on his own goal-line, the second of which led to wing Allen Khoury’s spectacular try in the 47^th minute, with a number of LAU players involved in a length-of-the-field special.