St Ives 26 Biggleswade 34
St Ives continued their run of bad luck in a tight home game against league newcomers Biggleswade.
Biggleswade, demoted from the league above, won the toss and elected to play uphill and receive the kick.
Almost straight away, both teams set out their stalls with hard rucking and plenty of physicality. St Ives seemed to have the edge, rucking well and with some hard hits from captain Pete Hammond showing the way, some hard tackling too. Unfortunately, during a period of attack on the Saints try line, openside flanker Ollie Scott appeared to collect a boot to the face in a ruck. In the ensuing fight that broke out, most of the saints’ forwards were involved but play continued, leaving their defensive line short. Biggleswade capitalised on this mistake and spread the ball wide to cross the line to score.
Saints replied almost immediately. Their scrum, always a strong point, was solid and provided their backs with a decent attacking platform. After one such period of play, saints fly half Paul Ashbridge set up centre Jack Collins on a run. Jack, backing his pace and strength, managed to cross the Biggleswade line to score.
The rest of the half continued in much the same vein. Saints forwards would dominate play, letting their backs run through. Then the Biggleswade backs would find holes in the (relatively inexperienced) St Ives backline. This game of rugbytennis continued for most of the game, right up until the final 10 minutes. Good running lines from the Biggleswade backs caught Saints out and they managed to score.
Speaking after the match, Saints (slightly concussed due to a cynical knee to the face in a scrum) captain Pete Hammond said “Overall, I was pleased with our performance today. For the most part our forwards outclassed theirs. In the lose we rucked and handled well, and our scrum was solid as always. Sometimes our lineout misfired, but we compensated by spoiling on their throw. Unfortunately there were several incidents where Biggleswade players were not operating within the laws which spoiled the tone of the game. We are consistent in the forwards it seems, but we do seem to struggle in the backs – this is due to the fact that we don’t seem to be able to field the same set two weeks running! Hopefully we will be able to recapture our form from our first win for our next few matches – away to Rolls Royce in the EDF Vase on the 13th followed by our next league match away against Bedford Queens on the 20th”.
St Ives try scorers were Paul Ashbridge, Nigel Sweeney and Jack Collins (x 2)