British Army lose to well-drilled Wests Warriors in Challenge Cup despite late surge

The British Army men's rugby league are out of the Challenge Cup after a testing 24-12 defeat to Wests Warriors at the Army Rugby Stadium in Aldershot.

A disappointing first half saw the Army ship two tries and go in 8-0 down and some ill-discipline in the second half, namely Adam Tozer's red card, gave them a mountain to climb.

However, a late surge gave them hope and made the final score respectable in defeat as Wests go on to face London Broncos in round two.

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The first half saw the Army struggle to complete sets with a number of errors and Wests punished them in ruthless fashion.

Semisi Ikahihifo scored twice to put the visitors in a commanding position and it was added to in the second half thanks to two penalties from Reiss Walker.

The frustrations boiled over for the Army after a brawl led to Tozer being sent off, but remarkably, the Army improved from that position.

Pita Tamani's superb cross-field run and hand-off gave James Amachree the option to score and Mikey McDonald added the extras to reduce the score.

The Army continued with the moment as McDonald did well to get the ball across to Todd Johnson's buckling run and he dove over for another try with McDonald scoring the conversion.

18-12 would have been a closer score than perhaps the Army deserved and Wests made sure that didn't happen with a late try and conversion to make it a 24-12 final score.

Army reactions to Challenge Cup loss

"I don't think the first half could have gone any worse," said Army head coach, Corporal Leigh Paul Rientoul.

"We're on a journey and there's little different combinations that we've been looking at. It makes our life easier now going into the next camp."

Army captain McDonald echoed his head coach's sentiments and believes they are being punished for poor starts.

He said: "We played our best rugby when we went down to twelve men. We just said we had to change it up and start using our outside edges. That's what we did.

"We're leaving it too late in games. We're turning it on too late and when we're too far behind."