Burton travelled to Newcastle in anticipation of a tough encounter following a trouncing by Newcastle earlier in the season, however this team have improved somewhat since then and the players took the field with no fear. We were more than a little light in the second row with Ed, Tom, Pete and Elvis all absent so we had hooker George O’Brien packing down with regular Sam Thorpe. The game started with Burton kicking to Newcastle and that the ball went in to touch near the 22 and the ball stayed in the Newcastle half for long periods. The Burton set piece was immense with the line out and scum dominating against a physically large pack. I lost count of the number of times the ball was won against the head at scrum time the tall Newcastle front row struggled to cope with Burton’s shorter and more powerful front row. The first try of the game came from good hands and sharp work from Jacob Ruprecht, the second was opportunists try at a 5 meter scrum from scrum half Joe Ensor who had one of his best games all season. The 3rd try in the half came from straight running Ben Gilleland who scored under the posts and the score was duly converted by stand in fly half Edward Robson. It’s important to stress there was no luck in this, had Burton’s accuracy been better the score could have been higher. The half ended 0 v 17.
The second half Newcastle came back strong; clearly they had not anticipated being down to a Burton side they had beaten 31 to 0 back in November. Burton made 3 changes at half time and set about their task. Newcastle scored a well worked try early in the second half following a number of quick penalties. It worth noting that at this point Burton started to struggle to get on the right side of the referee at the breakdown giving penalties for not realising in the tackle and coming in at the side, a tad frustrating. However Burton kept up what they had done in the first half to great effect and came close to scoring in the corner for the try to be disallowed for a foot in touch just prior to the scoring pass, however following several more drives into the Newcastle half they were rewarded by a good score from our short range specialist Matt Stockin. Burton had other opportunities to score but failed to move the ball quickly enough. Newcastle made good use of a series of penalty’s given away by Burton and scored twice more. The final score 22 v 21 to Burton.
A good game and a well-deserved victory over Newcastle who we had not beaten for some time. I ponder the series of results of the course of the season and Burton have gone from being beaten by the odd score to now winning fairly regularly and this is testament to the hard work and application shown in training and long may it continue. Very difficult to pick a man of the match, great performances right across the pitch both from backs and forwards. However Harry William gets the nod, an awesome performance at tight head in the first half and some good work in the loose in the second half playing at lock. 3 games to go, let’s keep it going!