Apologies in advance for the inaccuracies that maybe in this report. Too many glasses of red wine, good food and eating my bodyweight iin cheese over the festive period have made the short term memory substandard!

An afternoon kick off in Newmarket awaited the lads for the 1st match of 2025, we awaited the "thumbs up" regarding pitch inspections after the snow and rainfall overnight, but the news was good.... GAME ON!

We were accompanied by a new apprentice coach/team manager in the absence of Mark for this trip, Alex "Butters" Tulip was entrusted with the role of substitution manager and time keeper (hope he didn't drop his phone!).

The boys met up on time got changed quickly and were out on the pitch in an unusually prompt fashion, I have a sneaky suspicion they have missed rugby over the past few weeks! The rain stopped, wind lessened (a bit) and the boys ran out to something we are not used to... a pitch with grass, mud and NO standing water!! The stars were aligning!

Unfortunately we lost Joe to either flu or over indulgence on his birthday earlier in the day, so we had 18 players ready and willing, but sadly Newmarket could only field 12 players. We wanted the game to go ahead so we dropped 2 positions and Vlad kindly volunteered to play for them, this was a really good gesture by him, new to the game but keen to get experience!

Kick off started somewhat unconventionally, Owen in probably his only mistake all game "duffed" his kick off, not going 10 m but the Ref played on in Newmarkets advantage, however great support and turnover play gave us back possession, the ball went wide and we made good meters, from the resulting ruck Callum received the ball and dragged 3 players by his shirt from the 22m line in for try, ably converted by Dolly.

This set the tone for the rest of the match really, our backs learned quickly that quick hands created space outside with no full back to cover, this led to tries by Will, Owen, Eli, Ed and Will again.

Now this is the blurred bit and my own personal highlights from this half, Eli was dominant, running strong, tackling and charging through the line to terrorise the scrum half and fly half, this was topped by a try.......then surpassed by the best conversion of the game, nailing the conversion then landing on his backside (video is attached). Max tried to replicate this conversion effort but was outdone by his fellow prop!

The forwards were dominant, the rucking and support play was excellent with the team (all of them) jackling well, Sam was fearless and had a brilliant half.

Rupert did well at 10 and even pulled off a switch with Finn!

Half time whistle saw Alex making substitutions, however he took Will off and forgot to put him back on!! (This is to reduce his (Alex's) head size as he says he masterminded the clean sheet!) Finn returned after a blood replacement.

Newmarket put up some good resistance in the second half, this showed good heart and spirit, I told their team that we have been in this position before, it wasn't long ago we were always short of players and got nilled by a few teams in the past. Our defence was brilliant, Arlan, Callum, Frank, Isaac and most of the team to be honest, were solid.

There were 2 more tries in the second half, Callum bulldozed his way over for another well worked try and then Frank the tank Taylor literally took on every one of their players with a 50 meter run up the pitch (I would not have liked him running at me like that!!!!). This led to some great forward and back interlink play, with Captain Sam charging through from our half way to show a turn of speed for our final try. The conversion saw our 3rd Prop trying his hand at place kicking, Bobby the wrecking ball Bates had a good attempt but landed short!

The whistle was blown shortly afterwards (2 mins early) by the Ref, who I thought was excellent throughout the game.

Newmarket 0 St Ives 50

Man of the match was Eli, but a number of players could have won the award!

Well done boys!

Uptheives!