At the start of the night the Claymores had never won in Barcelona. By the end of the night, the same was true as the Claymores came up short on their final attempt to win it in the last minute after a successful onside kick.
| CLAYMORESPOLL |
Barcelona struck back quickly though when former Claymores running back Jesse Haynes broke 5 Claymores tackles to score from 22 yards out. Jesus Angoy added the extra point to tie the game.
Scotland's offense looked woeful for the rest of the half as Barcelona began to milk Jermaine Copeland's good form, Tony Graziani hitting the wideout from 4 yards on a quick slant. The Angoy PAT extended the lead to 14-7.
Scotland managed to put together a drive in the third quarter which culminated in Kevin Daft hitting Tremayne Allen from 10 yards and Allen scampered into the endzone. His second touchdown of the year brought the Claymores within one before Rob Hart hit his 80th consecutive PAT to tie the game.
Late in the third, Rob Hart kicked a 37 yard field goal to give the Claymores their first lead since the first quarter after their drive stalled - 17-14.
Jermaine Copeland gave the Dragons the lead on a 16 yard pass from Graziani. In the process he caught his ninth ball of the night setting a new NFL Europe League record for most catches in a season. He finished the game with 11 catches which gave him 74 on the season, 2 more than the old mark set by Judd Garrett of the London Monarchs back in 1991. 39 of his catches have been in the last three games.
Jesse Haynes extended the Barca lead further when he plunged in from very short yardage. It was his third attempt from less than a yard. Still, Angoy's extra point gave the Dragons an 11 point lead at 28-17.
The Claymores needed a spark and fast. It never really came but Marcus Crandell directed a drive to the Draongs 2 yard line from where he dropped back to pass and, finding no one open sprinted to the goalline, making it before being hammered.
The two-point attempt was called for as, if successful would bring the Scots within a field goal. Crandell again dropped back to pass, again found no one open and again sprinted for the endzone but this time easily. It was 28-25 Dragons with just 2 minutes left.
Rob Hart attempted the onside kick. It was a beauty and skiffed a Dragons defender, bounced to a lot of players and back to where it came from where Hart recovered his own kick. Claymores ball.
Crandell again moved the Claymores downfield, to the Dragons 40 yard line. Here, he was unable to find an open receiver before the pressure got to him. On fourth down he took the snap from the shotgun, scanned the receivers but was hit for the sack. The game was over as Barcelona ran down the clock.
Comments
The was a woeful performance all round. Offense stuggled to move the ball, defense stuggled to tackle, the only bright spot was special teams which, with the exception of an early blocked field goal had another excellent game.
On offense, the line gave the quarterback very little time to pass, especially in the fourth quarter when it was most needed. On the quarterback front, it is time Daft was back as the full time starter as Crandell seems to have lost his confidence completing just 8 of 27 attempts. Daft by comparison completed 8 of his 14 attempts with two touchdowns.
The running game was good but underused. Just 23 rushes from a team that relies on its running abilities. That, compared with 41 passing attempts. We haven't thrown that many passes all season. Admittedly we were behind but if we'd moved the ball better earlier in the game we wouldn't have needed to.
The defense, oh man, that was dreadful. They had the tackling problems they had at the start of the season. As a result, 149 yards on the ground were given up - more than any other game and for the first time, a running back gained over 100 yards on them.
Against the pass, things weren't much better with coverage being lacklustre and the tackling atrocious. Allowing one receiver to notch up 11 catches and his second touchdown was a disgrace.
Special teams again shone though with Sanford looking like breaking a long one every time he caught the ball. Even Damon Gibson had a good return. Rob Hart's onside kick was a thing of beauty and could be used as a textbook example of how to confuse the opposing team with his short bounce.
This team will have to regain it's focus before the World Bowl next week. They cannot go into the big game and play like that, Rhein will kill them. The intensity and vigour must return to the levels of the past three weeks and silly mistakes like personal fouls against Marcus Ray and Rasheed Simmons after the whistle must be eliminated.
Next week is the big game and some players appeared more focused on that than finishing off Barcelona.
Bring on World Bowl week! A good week of practice, an extra day of rest before the big game and the Claymores will be ready! in 1996, the Claymores lost in Barcelona in week 10 and won the Bowl the following week, let's just hope that history can repeat itself!
FINAL 1ST 2ND 3RD 4TH TOTAL
--- --- --- --- -----
CLAYMORES 7 0 10 8 25
BARCELONA 7 7 0 14 28 FINAL
SCORING SUMMARY
1ST QUARTER: SCO - TD, DAMON GIBSON 52 YD PASS FROM KEVIN DAFT (ROB
HART KICK), 0:19. CLAYMORES 7-0
BAR - TD, JESSE HAYNES 22 YD RUN (JESUS ANGOY KICK),
8:58. CLAYMORES 7, BARCELONA 7
2ND QUARTER: BAR - TD, JEREMAINE COPELAND 4 YD PASS FROM TONY GRAZIANI
(JESUS ANGOY KICK), 6:37. BARCELONA 14-7
3RD QUARTER: SCO - TD, TREMAYNE ALLEN 10 YD PASS FROM KEVIN DAFT (ROB
HART KICK), 9:20. CLAYMORES 14, BARCELONA 14
SCO - FG, ROB HART 37 YD, 13:37. CLAYMORES 17-14
4TH QUARTER: BAR - TD, JEREMAINE COPELAND 16 YD PASS FROM TONY
GRAZIANI (JESUS ANGOY KICK), 0:05. BARCELONA
21-17
BAR - TD, JESSE HAYNES 1 YD RUN (JESUS ANGOY KICK), 9:00.
BARCELONA 28-17
SCO - TD, MARCUS CRANDELL 2 YD RUN (MARCUS CRANDELL RUN
FOR TWO-POINT CONVERSION), 12:58. BARCELONA
28-25
TEAM STATISTICS
SCO BAR
-------- --------
FIRST DOWNS 24 16
Rushing 8 6
Passing 11 10
Penalty 5 0
3RD-DOWN EFFICIENCY 3-13 7-15
4TH-DOWN EFFICIENCY 1-2 0-0
TOTAL NET YARDS 342 348
Total plays 69 61
Average gain 5.0 5.7
NET YARDS RUSHING 149 134
Rushes 23 28
Average per rush 6.5 4.8
NET YARDS PASSING 193 214
Completed-attempted 16-41 21-32
Yards per pass 4.2 6.5
Sacked-yards lost 5-42 1-8
Had intercepted 0 0
PUNTS-AVERAGE 6-32.5 8-36.4
RETURN YARDAGE 203 95
Punts-returns 5-113 1-6
Kickoffs-returns 4-90 4-89
Interceptions-returns 0-0 0-0
PENALTIES-YARDS 8-81 7-55
FUMBLES-LOST 2-1 0-0
TIME OF POSSESSION 29:21 30:39
PLAYER STATISTICS
Missed field goals: Claymores (Rob Hart 25).
Claymores rushing: Aaron Stecker 14-88, Kevin Daft 2-25, Marcus
Crandell 5-19, Sulecio Sanford 1-12, Ben Snell 1-5.
Barcelona rushing: Jesse Haynes 22-117, D Manns 3-17, Cory Sauter
1-1, Tony Graziani 2-minus 1.
Claymores passing: Marcus Crandell 8-27 for 107 yards, 0 INT, 0
TD, Kevin Daft 8-14 for 128 yards, 0 INT, 2 TD.
Barcelona passing: Tony Graziani 14-20 for 187 yards, 0 INT, 2 TD,
Cory Sauter 7-12 for 35 yards, 0 INT, 0 TD.
Claymores receiving: Damon Gibson 3-69, Donald Sellers 3-54,
Sulecio Sanford 3-51, Tremayne Allen 2-18, Rickey Brady 2-18, Aaron
Stecker 1-18, Rowelle Blenman 1-5, Ben Snell 1-2.
Barcelona receiving: Jeremaine Copeland 11-138, Jesse Haynes 5-9,
Carlos Rosado 2-52, Chris Jones 1-14, Rodney Williams 1-6, Damian
Vaughn 1-3.
Attendance: 8,200.