St Ives 1XV 101 vs. Huntingdon 2XV 5
St Ives became Centurions this Saturday against a Huntingdon side that was showing its age. St Ives hoped to use this match as an opportunity to get their game plan set and ready for the beginning of the league season next week, but due to some poor defending on Huntingdon's part, the game instead became a try fest in St Ives' favour.
From the opening 5 minutes St Ives set out their stall with the intention of running Huntingdon ragged. The kick off found it's way into James Yeomans' hands and from the resulting ruck St Ives were able to blast through the defence on first phase and score under the posts. This became much of the story of the first half with tries arriving at regular intervals - in fact the only area that Huntingdon were holding their own was the scrummage but that too became irrelevant due to an injury to their prop. The scrums went uncontested which gave the St Ives pack that little bit more freedom to maraud around the field. They took this opportunity with gusto and kept Huntingdon pinned back for the remainder of the half. Huntingdon did receive a try from a good passage of play, which saw the scrum half go over in the corner - this unfortunately was to be their only visit to St Ives' goal line.
The second half started at a much faster pace, St Ives now playing down the hill found the fitness of the Huntingdon team to be wanting and continued the try spectacle that entertained the crowd in the first half. St Ives scored 17 tries in total with 5 from Adam Clark, 3 from Jason Price, 2 a piece from James Cannon and debutant Marc Sands and one a piece from Steve Burke, Mickey Drake, Jack Blackley, Ed Salmon and Jim Lewsam and with 16 points coming from the boot of Adam Clark bringing the final score to 101 - 5.
St Ives 1XV Captain Ross Thompson said after the game "Credit is due to Huntingdon, despite being on the wrong end of a hefty score they never gave up trying. With respect to St Ives' performance, it was fantastic, beating Huntingdon is always something to savour - the youngsters and speedsters had a chance to show what they can do and enjoyed the broken field running - unfortunately though we would have preferred a stiffer contest, we aren't going to be able to score on first phase possession next week and we wanted to build on the game plan. There are plenty of positives to be taken though and we are confident going into next week against Stamford ."
St Ives begin their league campaign away against Stamford on the 23 rd September, with the 2XV entertaining Stamford 2XV at Somersham road.