Royston 59 St Ives 5
St Ives kicked off their 2007/2008 season with an encouraging first fixture against Royston RFC on the first hot day of the summer. The score line, although one sided, did not entirely reflect the tone of the game.
St Ives travelled to Royston with a severely depleted side, with several players playing for the first time and several playing out of position and missing many players from the squad due to injuries and prior commitments – it being the bank holiday weekend! However, St Ives could take many positives from a hard fought match. St Ives took a squad of 15 players, and still had to borrow a prop forward from Royston (for which we thank Royston) to enable the match to flow as best it could – and avoiding uncontested scrums.
The match itself comprised of 4 20 minute quarters, a format usually employed to enable sides to swap in and out players to try different players out and to assess their abilities. However, this format only really benefited Royston and their substantial squad, as they were able to field fresh players for each quarter, whereas St Ives had to battle on with the same, exhausted and tired, squad.
The majority of Royston’s score came from open play and from mistakes made by the tired St Ives defence. But despite the onslaught from Royston, St Ives never gave up and continued to battle on. St Ives try came from a scrum 5 metres from the Royston line after a well constructed passage of play. Number 8 Ross Thompson picked up from the base of the solid St Ives scrum and powered over the line for the final touch of the game. This score effectively “drew” the final quarter, with each team scoring a try apiece.
Speaking after the match, St Ives captain Pete Hammond said “I am pleased with how the game went today. We played hard and well throughout, and were playing against a much bigger squad. We defended well and put together some excellent attacking phases of play. We can take away many positives from today’s performance, as well as some things to work on at training. I look forward to next weeks first home fixture, another 4 quarter fixture at home against Kempston, where hopefully we will be able to field a more complete squad”.