Broncos off to fine start

Rugby League London Broncos 38 Paris St-Germain 22:

London last night won a Super League match to make any of the game's expansionists burst with pride. The Eurotunnel meeting at The Valley, Charlton Athletic's football ground, between the two capitals was watched by 9,638 enthusiastic spectators, the highest for a club game in London for 10 years.

After early Paris pressure came to nothing tangible, the Broncos almost opened the scoring after eight minutes when centre Tulsen Tollett went over the line but failed to ground the ball in an inadvertant somersault.

The first points came nine minutes later when Tony Mestrov, a third-minute substitute, fed the ball to Kieran Meyer, who scored in the right corner.

The visitors got their first points when Tollett played the ball to himself, no longer allowed, and Patrick Torreilles almost made a hash of the kick in front of the posts to make it 4-2.

London came back quickly when Duncan McRae stepped inside a weak tackle and ran in from 25 yards out. Greg Barwick stroked over his first goal.

Paris hit back five minutes later. They looked to have wasted an overlap, but recovered for Arnaud Cervello to finish off the move in the left corner.

Three minutes before half-time Tollett made the score 16-6 when he sped through a gap in the defence.

Paris threw the ball around well at the opening of the second half and scored a deserved try after 50 minutes by Ian Turner to which Torreilles added the goal. McCrae repeated his trick of stepping inside to touch down and Barwick restored London's 10-point lead but that was immediately reduced by Pascal Bomati and Torreilles' third goal.

After London threw the ball left and right, Dynevor brilliantly collected his own chip to give Barwick an easy goal. Junior Paul crossed for London's seventh try during the celebrations following the announcement of the attendance.

Tollett scored his second try five minutes from the end to seal a satisfying night for the Broncos that put them top of the Super League, something that Jean-Luc Ramondou's try two minutes from the end failed to dispel.

London Broncos: Barwick; Paul, Meyer, Tollett, Carroll; McRae, Dynevor; Bawden, Rae, Allen, Shaw, Pitt, Matterson. Substitutes used: Mestrov, Bryant, Keating, Smith.

Paris St-Germain: Lucchese; Bomati, Chamorin, Turner, Cervello; Brown, Entat; Kacala, Torreilles, Utoikamanu, Adams, Cavestaney, Pech. Substitutes: Bloomfield, Devecchi, Courtine, Ramondou.

Referee: D Campbell (Widnes).