St Ives 1XV 20 vs. Wellingborough OGs 3
This Saturday saw St Ives perform a task they failed to do all of last season! Win a league game!!
Somersham Road was witness to a solid defensive display from St Ives this past Saturday as the Bulls successfully tabled their first league points of the campaign. The first half started brightly for Wellingborough who came out immediately on the offensive. After a couple of strong drives they found themselves 10 metres from the try line when St Ives conceded a penalty. Wellingborough elected to kick the points and notched up an easy 3 points. St Ives lay down the gauntlet after this and vowed not to let any more points be conceded. The forwards attacked with extra vigour, fighting up the slope and into the wind, with a series of energy sapping drives. The forwards also put the defensive frailties of last weekend out of their minds and knocked Wellingborough back every time they tried to snipe on the fringes. The quality possession and strong forward play eventually paid off, creating the overlap on the right wing, some excellent hands from Mike Sykes and Paul Spencer ensured the chance did not go a begging and put Dan Fry in on the far side, unfortunately Jack Blackley missed the conversion.
This was the end of the scoring for the first half and St Ives turned around 5-3 ahead. The second half saw the home side enjoy both the slope and the wind and some quick drives found them within reaching distance of the Wellingborough line. From the line out a strong catch and drive saw Steve Burke emerge with the ball and power over for the score. Jack was again unsuccessful. From the restart St Ives said they wanted more, and immediately laid siege to the Wellingborough defence again, some strong scrummaging and clean ball found Jason Price in the loose. Bursting through two tackles, Jason 'Deep Heat' Price powered over for St Ives' third try of the game. Once again Jack was unsuccessful with the conversion.
St Ives' fourth try game from some backline genius. John Paxton playing at scrum half today had been peppering the Wellingborough line all afternoon, a dummy to Jack created the gap for John to streak through, draw his tackler and offload to Mike Sykes. Some strong running from both Mike Sykes and Paul Spencer cretaed the gap for Paxton to stream over unopposed. Mike Sykes now taking over kicking duties had been inflicted with the same bad luck as Jack and was unsuccessful.
The end of the game saw St Ives showing off their defensive game once again as Wellingborough attacked again, but their efforts' were repelled by the St Ives line. Unfortunately, the end of the game was marred by a number of punch ups breaking out. This saw the dismissal of John Paxton for retaliation (although nothing was said about the OG's player who ran 30 yards to get one in) who will be sorely missed over the coming weeks with trips to Bedford Swifts and Stneygate ahead.
Final Score St Ives 20 - Wellingborough OG's 3