Saturday 9th April 2005
Wellingborough OG’s vs. St Ives
This Saturday saw St Ives travel to Wellingborough for their final league game in a mixed result season. After last weekends 79 – 0 victory over Corby, the players hopes were high for another win. Unfortunately this was not to be the case on the day.
A couple of last minute drop outs on Friday night and player unavailability resulted in a rush around on Saturday morning to field 2 teams for the day. This ultimately led to the players leaving later than anticipated. Despite this though, 2 teams were playing and morale was still high.
A late arrival to Wellingborough resulted in a rather lacklustre start for St Ives, from the start Wellingborough were hammering St Ives’ defensive line. Fortunately it held strong and St Ives were the first to break the deadlock. Some good forward play saw some resemblance of a platform being built for the backs, the good play paid off with Wellingborough being forced to infringe at the breakdown awarding St Ives a penalty just to the left of the posts. Jack Blackley happily took the 3 points.
Wellingborough were next to score, thanks to a moment of confusion in the St Ives back line. From the lineout, OG’s threw long. Brian Richardson scrabbled for the ball (no thanks to the obstruction from the OG’s scrum half) and eventually saw it hacked from under him by the Wellingborough back row. The ball then turned into a hot potato with no-one wanting to pick it up. Wellingborough eventually did and found their winger on his own with an unopposed run in. OG’s fly half converted.
St Ives answered back later in the half with another 3 points from the boot of Jack Blackley to bring the first half score to 7 – 6 in Wellingborough’s favour.
The second half began in much the same way as the first, Wellingborough were quicker out of the block and were again bombarding the St Ives line. The defence again held out well for a time but eventually cracked; allowing OG’s to score again. The try was converted.
St Ives started to attack and some good possession and runs saw us marching up towards the OG’s 22. Unfortunately we then lost centre Dave Sykes to the sin bin following an extremely late charge down attempt. Despite being a man down, St Ives continued to attack and some constant infringements from OG’s saw numerous penalties going St Ives’ way. This eventually paid off, some good hands from Ross Thompson and Steve Burke put Mike Sykes through to score. Unfortunately Jack Blackley missed the conversion.
The final quarter provided some exciting rugby, with only one score in it; both teams were throwing everything against the wall. OG’s scored a further penalty to bring the scores to 17-11, and despite all of St Ives’ efforts, the final try was not forthcoming.
Final Score: Wellingborough OG’s 17 – St Ives 11