(Allene Rachal photo)

The 2009 American National Rugby League season is officially underway with the Jacksonville Axemen posting a 44-24 win against the Washington DC Slayers Saturday in the nation’s capital.

It was literally anyone’s game at halftime with the scores all locked up at 18-18.

Both teams picked up bonus points for scoring four tries.

The Axemen really poured on the pressure in the second frame eventually tallying seven tries, including a penalty try.

Simon Moate led all scorers with four, while coach Spinner Howland chimed in with a pair and Apple Pope got the other one. Brent Shorten was 100% with his goal-kicking going 8-for-8.

“We’re pleased with the result, but the stuff we’re not pleased with was too many turnovers,” coach Howland told ARN.

“We gave away possession too many times on the fifth tackle. I think the fitness aspect was the difference. We were still running pretty easily at fulltime.”

Despite coming out on the wrong side of the ledger, the Slayers still put in five tries although their goal-kicking was a little less than accurate.

Tai Vakatale (2), Robert Hilliard and George Raad were among Washington’s try-scorers.

“We’re not really happy about it but we were a bit disorganized and it showed,” Washington DC Slayers co-coach Billy Weeks told ARN.

“We’ve got a lot of new faces and our practice schedule was disrupted because of the weather, so we were about a week behind where we wanted to be for this game.”

Both Jacksonville and DC made the AMNRL playoffs last year and both have their sights set on making return appearances come August.