St Neots 2's 38 - St Ives 2's 10
The snow melted just in time for St Ives to travel to St Neot's for this local derby. Whenever you play St Neots you always know they are going to put up a strong fight, this game was no exception it "was a good old battle". St Ives started well with the forwards getting around the park creating good ball for John Paxton at scrum half and Mark Dollard at 10 to play with. It was St Ives who scored first through Captain Oliver Scott. It came from a solid drive from Ross Thompson who popped off to Pete Wood-Eeles who then put 'Showbiz' Scott in for the try. Unfortunately full back Paul Spencer was off target with his first attempt.
St Neots came straight back at St Ives scoring two tries in the first half. St Neots had a strong advantage on the Ives in the scrums, they made the front row of James Bennet, Stuart Cornwell and Pete Wood-Eeles work for every scrum, this didn't stop the St Ives front 3, they battled hard and never gave up throughout the game, as the game went on St Neots tired in the scrum where as St Ives stood firm. This enabled Dollard to have a blinder at Fly half; he gave good ball to the centre pairing off James Cannon and Alec Campbell who were solid in defence all day.
The second half started poorly for St Ives allowing a St Neots try in straight away, this fired the away team up and they played the best 15minutes of rugby in the whole game. The pack played the St Neots pack out off the game which fired the home team up and made them pull out some of their favorite cheap shots, which caused two members of their front row to have 10 mins rest in the bin. Unfortunately St Ives did not take full advantage of this and only scored 1 try in this period. It was from a good back move made by Paxton, popping out to Mike Sykes who took his man creating a massive gap for Matt Lippard to score in the corner. With Sammy Spencer unsuccessful for the 2nd time.
St Ives didn't carry on with the same amount of aggression going forward, and the last 10mins was disappointing for the away team allowing 3 soft tries in what the home team really did not deserve. St Ives second team Captain Oliver Scott commented after the game saying "this was another game where we should of won, we didn't get the basics right today, we had some strong periods of play without much reward. Next week we are going to have to be on top form as we entertain top of the league Sharnbrook and Colworth at Somersham Road".