Para Lions get double win at EPFA Nations Cup

The England Powerchair team made a strong start to their EPFA Nations Cup defence on Saturday morning, with a 6-0 win over Scotland and a 2-1 victory over host nation Italy in Lignano Sabbiadoro.

Adam McEvoy's side played their first of two games on Saturday morning and won in convincing fashion against Scotland.

The Para Lions were 4-0 up by half time, with Dan McLellan (above) scoring all four with the first two coming from corners before the youngster finished off well after being picked out by a pass. His fourth came from a free-kick, before the fifth came after the break when he finished off a move from open play.

And the final goal came from the penalty spot with Dylan Kelsall making it 6-0 to the Para Lions to round off an impressive start to the competition. 

In the afternoon, a first-half goal from Italy stunned the Para Lions, but second-half changes from McEvoy inspired England to claw back victory.

It was a frustrating first half for England and early signs of fluidity from Jon Bolding and Chris Gordon was overshadowed by miscommunication, allowing Italy to punish them. From a free kick, Italian captain Simone Ranzato picked out Gabriel Mindru, who slipped the ball between two defenders and over the line for the opener.

Bolding admitted afterwards: “I think we might’ve underestimated [Italy] a little bit. They’ve come on a lot since two or three years ago… it was the little nitty-gritty stuff they do well, which we underestimated. But overall happy to get the result, again not a performance we were happy about but the three points are all you care about at this stage of the tournament.”

After 26 minutes of relentless Italian resistance, McEvoy looked to his bench. On came Ed Common and Dylan Kelsall — and the impact was immediate. Within minutes, the substitutes combined, with Common grabbing the equaliser.

Reflecting on the manager’s instructions, Kelsall explained: “The main message from Adam was purely to just be game changers.”

With the game finely poised, England pushed again. Eight minutes from time, Bolding’s free kick was flicked on by Common into Kelsall’s path, and his strike trickled over the line to complete the turnaround.

Bolding praised the strength in depth that made the comeback possible: “We have eight fantastic players and when you can bring off two players like Dan [McLellan] and Marcus [Harrison] to bring on Ed [Common] and Dylan [Kelsall] you don’t see a difference in quality — and then they obviously made the difference to get us the win.”

And he singled Kelsall out for special recognition: “Dylan’s a fantastic player, I’ve said to him over the past two years I think he’s the most improved player… he made a real impact when he came on, and that’s that winger’s job. No one’s guaranteed to start, but he’s given himself a great opportunity to start the next game based on that performance.”

It wasn’t the polished display England may have wanted, but it was the result they needed. Two wins from two keeps their title defence on track.

The Para Lions will be back in action on Sunday afternoon (12pm BST) when they face Denmark in their third match before they finish the group stage on Monday afternoon against Republic of Ireland (1.45pm BST).

All matches at the tournament are being streamed live by the EPFA, and can be watched here, or you can see the action from today's games in the video players below.