A splendid morning for rugby

Squad: Ollie Anderson, James Bunce, Huey Chadwick, Zac Collingbourne, Tom Crossfield, Sid Dey, Adam Fairley, Dom Goodman, Ed Griffiths, Jack Gurney, Isaac MacDonald, Alfred Mawdsley, Blake Morris, Devan Owen, Max Shepherd, Harry Spennewyn, James Tunney, Monty Weatherall, Jake Wilkins

Try scorers: Chadwick, Wilkins, Tunney, Dey, Shepherd, Morris, Mawdsley, Anderson.

An important match for A&C as they kicked off deep into the opposition territory.
Both sides were nervous, not committing to any major advancement fearing an error leading to a soft try.
The first 10 minutes produced a midfield battle as A&C fought against Bletchley’s surprisingly large pack.
The size and physicality of the home pack resulted in A&C overcommitting players in the ruck to have any chance of winning the ball. The Bletchley forwards also overpowering A&C in the scrum although we managed to retain possession even when we were going backwards. Ultimately, Bletchley advanced well into A&C territory. However, Devan grappled the ball from the back of a scrum and passed to Monty and then onto Max who sent it to Huey who had space to build a head of steam and motor down the wing to score our first try. This I felt would be the tipping point, so important to get that first try.
A&C now began to apply pressure.
Jake was able to put one over the line from short distance after much hard work to make the score 0-10, a well-earned try.
Following guidance from the touchline, the forwards began to adjust their game play and commit fewer players in the contact, but with those players upping their game.
The approach paid off and we began to win more rucks, including one with James Tunney picking up the ball and running 20 yards to score. Monty converted to take the score to 0-17.
Bletchley kicked off with the ball landing straight into the arms of Sid who was deep in his own half. He leapt into action like a coiled spring, running at pace and using his low centre of gravity to dance like the Pied Piper through the opposition and score between the posts. Entirely Bletchley’s fault, they should never let that happen. Nonetheless, with a conversion by Monty we were winning 0-24.
The whole team were now working fluidly with the forwards becoming more dominant and the backs moving the ball swiftly to the wings. After solid progress from Ed Griffiths and James Bunce the ball came out to James Tunney who carried it 10 yards and passed to Max who passed to Blake down the wing. Blake ran into opposition and offloaded to Max who ran, handed off and scored. 0-29 at the turn.

The second half kicked off with Harry Spennewyn joining the fray followed soon afterwards by Jack Gurney, Zac Collingbourne and debutant Tom Crossfield from the bench. Bletchley also refreshed but were still under pressure.
It didn’t take long before the ball ended in Blake’s hands and a fast run was on the way. Another try.
Feeling a little left out, Alfred got hold of the ball from a maul and ran towards the posts to score a comfortable try.
The game finished by Ollie Anderson rediscovering his speed and scoring our 8th try of the game. Particularly satisfying was that the tries were scored by 8 different individuals, and from 4 forwards and 4 backs, including a member of the front row (rare on the try count) who crossed the whitewash. Defence was also solid even under periods of pressure from Bletchley.

A great effort by all the entire squad with a final score of 0-46.
We now face Buckingham in what should be an exciting final.

Scribe: Lawson Shepherd