Admirals humiliate impotent Monarchs

American football

The looks of stunned disbelief on the faces of the players told their own tale. The London Monarchs had outperformed the Amsterdam Admirals in just about every meaningful phase of the game, yet had still emerged on the wrong end of a 34-6 humiliation in the Netherlands on Saturday night.

London enjoyed a greater time of possession, gained more yardage, had more first downs, yet still failed to score a touchdown. In three games of the World League season, the Monarchs' offense has managed just one trip to the end zone, and never seriously threatened to add to that tally in the Amsterdam Arena.

All they had to shown for their efforts were two Don Silvestri field goals, a series of missed opportunities, and perhaps most damaging of all, 12 costly penalties. "We got killed out there," their head coach, Lionel Taylor, admitted. "Mental errors hurt us and that will not happen again."

A pair of touchdown runs from Ralph Dawkins, another from Brent Moss and a 49-yard pass from the quarterback Mike McCoy to A C Tellison had put the Admirals in pole position, while impressive play on special teams further helped their cause. Ron Carpenter, who led the NFL in kick-off returns in 1995, gained 120 yards on two returns, while Moss added a further 35 yards on an impressively executed fake punt.

In contrast, little went the Monarchs' way. The quarterback Stan White, whose third-quarter fumble ended a promising drive at the five-yard line, was given little protection before being replaced for the second week running by Preston Jones. The former Philadelphia Eagle duly suffered the indignity of being intercepted by the impressive Carpenter. His return to London's five-yard line ended in a fumble, but as if to confirm this was not to be London's night, the ball was recovered by his team-mate Jey Phillips in the end zone to complete the scoring.

The Monarchs must now win their home game against the Barcelona Dragons on Sunday to maintain slender hopes of hosting the World Bowl at the end of June.

n A second home defeat in succession saw the Scottish Claymores lose 23-10 against the Rhein Fire at Murrayfield yesterday. The running back Firan Stacy scored the Claymore's touchdown and Gary Parker converted the extra point for his first successful kick in the professional game. Meanwhile, Steve Pelleur threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to John Morton in the final minute to lift the Frankfurt Galaxy to a 17-10 victory over Barcelona on Saturday night.