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The Coventry Jets youth team won their debut game against the Birmingham Bulls at the Butts Arena in Coventry on Saturday in a close, nail biting, game 28-24.It was the first competitive game for the young Jets, who didn’t seem overawed at the task in front of them. The Birmingham Bulls won the central conference last season, making the playoffs and had recently been bolstered by a merger with the Redditch Arrows.

Once the smoke had settled the Jets set about the game in what is starting to become their trademark – an aggressive and fast defence, led by TJ Chieza, quickly forced the Bulls to punt where the Jets offense, led by GB Lions youth quarterback Joe Brammer, would take over. After a bad snap and a couple of penalties the Jets were forced to punt but they wouldn’t wait much longer to open the scoring. Joe Brammer led his offense down field, the highlight being a spectacular 41 yard catch by Alex Preece. Brammer then nearly went in to the end zone himself, scrambling on a 10 yd run which saw him forced out of bounds at the 1 yard line. Running back Sean Hanlon dived over on the following play to score the first ever touchdown for the Jets youth team. Kicker, Elliot Strong converted the point after attempt.

The Bulls offense were struggling to move the ball at this point and turned to their power running game and would’ve scored were not for Liam Flinn’s touchdown saving tackle. Shortly after, another well engineered drive by Brammer saw him pick out the wide open Alex Preece who went in for a 38 yard touchdown, making the score 14-0 Jets.

Paul Romaniuk followed this up on the Birmingham’s next series with a forced fumble and recovery of 45 yards. The 17 year old Hinckley native showed all of his athleticism to out sprint the pursuing Bulls’ players to the endzone handing the Jets a comfortable 22-0 lead at half time.

The Jets started the second half in fine form as well, scoring on their first possession. Brammer again found a wide open wide receiver, this time Alex Elliot going in from 13 yards after a 52 yard completion to Johnny Muanza on the previous play.

At 28-0 the Jets were cruising but it wouldn’t be all plain-sailing as the Bulls mounted a furious comeback. After bursting through the Bulls offensive line and making a huge play on 4th and short Matt Gough was penalised for his over-exuberant celebration. The penalty handed Birmingham a fresh set of downs resulting in Josh Culling’s 2 yard touchdown run.

Worse was to come as a bad snap on the Jets’ next play resulted in quarterback Brammer being unable to recover the ball and watching helplessly as the Bulls returned it for a 29 yard touchdown return bringing the score to 28-16. A blown coverage assignment by the Jets’ secondary handed Bulls’ quarterback Robert Cobald an opportunity to pick out Brad Mayberry for a 19 yard score to take the game to 28-24, making for a nervous fourth quarter for the young Jets.

With the Jets high geared offense stalling, a great special teams play by Paul Romaniuk, recovering another fumble gave the Jets great field position to run the clock out. Hanlon coughed up the ball on a jarring hit though, gifting the Bulls great field position. Cobald then put together a drive which had the Bulls on the cusp of scoring and ruining the Jets debut.

Coventry mounted a terrific defensive stand on their own goal line with Matt Gough making up for his earlier indiscretion, again bursting through the Bulls line to force a fumble which TJ Chieza recovered, securing a hard fought victory for the Jets, 28-24.

Head coach Adam Biggs said “I think Saturday shows our youth team may be small in stature but is packed full of talent and heart. No doubt some of the lads need to be more disciplined but for a rookie team to play like that in their first game and come away with a tough win speaks volumes for them and I couldn't be happier. We are looking forward to our next game against Tamworth Phoenix on the 27th June and hopefully our second victory”.

Photo shows Jets QB Joe Brammer (Courtesy of the Bulls)