Results and Reports 11th February 2007
Ely 12 St Ives 31
In wet and windy conditions and on a poor surface, St Ives U13's were keen to bounce back from their first defeat of the campaign the previous weekend.
St Ives once again started poorly, as has been the case all season, and conceded two early tries to trail by 12 points.
St Ives eventually woke up with Dan Malem scoring a deserved try under the posts which was converted by Jack Topham. The teams went in at half-time with Ely having a 5 point lead.
In the second half, and with the wind at their backs, St Ives looked to dominate proceedings. An unfortunate injury the to the Ely number 8 reduced the home team to 14 players and after a tap penalty on the half-way line, Alex Colah ran unopposed through the 14 man Ely defence to score under the posts. Topham again kicked the conversion.
A perfectly executed pre-planned move from a scrum saw St Ives winger James 'Frosty' Frost scoring in the corner for his first try of the season.
After that it was one-way traffic and in the interests of fair play St Ives sportingly agreed to remove one of their players to make even numbers and then agreed to finish the game early when another Ely player had to leave the pitch due to injury.
This was a much improved performance and completed the double against a spirited but depleted Ely team.
Ely 0 St Ives 56
St Ives arrived at Ely on Sunday morning in anticipation of the normal tough game against old adversaries. Unfortunately, due to late withdrawals, the Ely team was short of numbers and St Ives agreed to lend Ely three of their substitutes to enable the game to go ahead on a muddy & wet pitch after recent rain and snow.
From the kick off St Ives made light of the conditions playing some of their best rugby of the season with backs and forwards inter-working to great effect. From an early scrum, Andy Cox fed a planned blind side backs move resulting in John Leak scoring in the corner, converted by Andy Howard from the tough line. The next score particularly pleased the coaches, with a series of well marshalled and executed forward drives resulting in the 'mighty' Alex Bignell crashing over. The scoring continued to flow for the remainder of the half with further tries from Jack Smith, Thomas Mulqueen, Matt Bligh, Hayden Bailey and Ben Sockett. The half finished with a score line of Ely 0, St Ives 39.
At half time, St Ives swapped around the players leant to Ely, however, this did not change the pattern of the game with further well executed backs and forward play resulting in quick tries for Tino, Andy Howard and Hayden Bailey. With the score at Ely 0, St Ives 56, the referee suspended 'official' scoring under RFU guidelines, however, to Ely's credit they agreed to continue the game.
During the remainder of the half, Ryan Hornett completed a flowing backs move to score on his St Ives debut, and following further converted tries from Andy Howard and Matt Bligh the referee blew for full time.
After the game the Ely coach took time to thank all of the St Ives players for their attitude and help in enabling the game to go ahead. This was reciprocated by the St Ives Team Manager Andy Britton who was particularly pleased and impressed with the performances of the players who played for Ely during the game.
All hope the Ely will soon be back to their former strength and look forward to the customary tough encounters next year.