The Back Bay Sharks have won their second game on the trot at the expense of
Riverside in the final game of the fifth round of the Southern California
League championship.

Playing under sunny skies and in very warm conditions on Sunday in the
Inland Empire east of Los Angeles, Back Bay ran in nine tries to Riverside's
one in a 59-10 thumping.

It was, to use an old cliché, a game of halves. The first half saw players
from both teams sin binned for various infringements and each time the other
side capitalised on the extra man advantage. Back Bay went to the break with
a slender 7 point lead, but the second 40 minutes was all one way traffic.

The Sharks enjoyed a glut of possession that allowed them to score with
regular monotony as Riverside was forced to play defensive rugby for 90 per
cent of the half.

Players that stood out for Back Bay were US Eagles 7s winger David Fee who
raced in for four tries, Welsh flyhalf Andrew Lewis who directed play well
and kicked six conversions, and number eight Cameron Frater who took the
ball up hard all day.

Sharks player/coach Matt Grimmison got things rolling by scoring the first
try in just the third minute and thought his team showed more discipline in
the second half, "We made too many errors in the first half by pushing line
breaks and fast passes, where we took our time a little bit more in the
second half and it was pretty rewarding."

Fee was certainly one of the stars of the match. This guy has genuine pace
and showed blistering speed each time he got the ball. He also proved he has
other skills by converting the last of his four tries. The speedster, who
moved to California from Chicago two years ago to improve his chances of
national selection, said the extra space out wide allows him to run at full
speed.

"That's probably my biggest asset. Last year they had me tied up a little
bit at flyhalf, but this year they moved me out to the wing to utilise my
pace a little bit."

For Riverside, the scoreline didn't reflect their level of commitment.
Although they were well beaten, they never stopped trying and skipper Ashley
Pengelly attributed the loss to waning fitness and silly errors.

"We were doing a lot of stupid things, making a lot of mistakes that were
destructive to us. You can never win a game losing your own ball and they
were taking it from us quite a bit. But that's going to come, we've got a
fairly young team at the First Division level and we're still building, so
we're positive."

The result sees Back Bay (2-3) improve to fourth place on the points ladder,
while Riverside (0-5) is staring down the barrel of the wooden spoon.