B;s v Stoke 2nds

Another tough day at the office against a strong Stoke side , we had to make changes again through injuries and holidays but pleased to be able to name a good starting 15 and 5 finishers this week . Jamie Parker coming out of semi retirement captained the side for the day and formed a strong front row alongside Bradda and James Dean , plan was to match Stoke in this area which we more than did pushing them back on a number of occasions and having a strong lineout marshalled well by Rob Ramsell , it was from one of these that resulted in our first try touched down after a maul by our own JD after 7 minutes the extra 2 points added from a tight angle by Charlie Quinton making his second senior appearance a week after his 18th birthday.

Score B's 7-0 Stoke

Just prior to the try though we lost Hector Abel to what looked like a torn hamstring so had to readjust our back line with Dan Richards coming on at 15 and Charlie Wright moving to 10. We added a second try after 20 minutes after a great lung bursting 20 yard charge by Jamie and then capped by a sublime offload to the supporting Joe Ensor who sped away from the Stoke defence to score his first of the season extras missed .

Score B's 12-0 Stoke

The changes affected our structure and we went a little ragged in defence and wasn't surprising that Stoke picked up on this and realized that if they used the ball and bought their backs into the game they could go round us and on 32 minutes and then 38 added two converted try's to take the lead into half time .

Half Time B's 12-14 Stoke

The discussion during the interval was all about retaining possession and using our scrum and lineout to good effect , we made a couple of changes bringing on old heads Paz and Will Forrester. We kicked off the second half and were soon into our stride and used these tactics superbly adding two try's on 45 minutes and 48 both from catch and drives by Paz and Will the second ensuring the bonus point both difficult conversions missed .

Score B's 22-14 Stoke

A couple of further changes were made with all our finishers now on the pitch with George Bellamy returning for a welcome appearance who was soon at his rampaging best with ball in hand .The game at this stage had gone quite open and was moving from end to end Stoke adding their 3rd try to reduce the deficit to 3 points with over 20 minutes to play .

Score B's 22-19 Stoke

On 72 minutes though we scored again our 5th try when George picked up and went through 3 would be tacklers to touch down under the posts this time Charlie added the extra's to take us 10 points clear and this was how it stayed until the final whistle .

Final Score B's 29-19 Stoke

We are now 3rd in the league our highest position on 14 points with 3 wins from 4 games with the rearranged game against Whittington this coming Sat another bonus point win could take us top