South do just about enough to subdue Bournville

South Leicester welcomed league newcomers Bourneville for their first ever game at Welford Road on a bright, but cool day.
South had Gareth Clarke, Gareth Kerr and Chris Bale back from injury with Connor Smith moving inside from wing to inside centre. Dave Weston, Rhod McNaughton and Aaron Langan making up the bench.

The visitors started the brighter denying the home side any meaningful possession. South, however, gradually got into the game through the power of their forwards. From a thrust into the visitors 22 with good interplay Chris Bale burst through to open the scoring wide on the right. Joe Glover slotted an impressive conversion kick and South were up and running.
Bourneville, however, struck back almost immediately as the impressive Robin Eatough cut through the hesitant South defence to touch down. Alex Warner added the extras, so back to all square after only 8 minutes.
Mark Lord did the approach work with a fine outside break to put Connor Smith in under the posts for South’s next score converted by Glover. Warner replied for the visitors with a penalty, while Stu Bale got South’s third try barging over after more good approach work and subtle offloading by his forward colleagues. Glover couldn’t add the extras from wide out. During this period South had the better of the exchanges both in the scrum and in the line out where Will Ward ruled supreme. However, Bourneville wouldn’t lie down and after Glover was sin binned they scored two converted tries through Adam Woodfield for 19-27 lead taking full advantage of their man advantage. Lord converted a penalty to narrow the gap, but at half time the visitors held a 22-27 lead.

Steve Booth must have read the riot act during the break as South came out all fired up scoring two converted tries through Chris Bale and Gareth Clarke to take a 36-27 lead and the try bonus point. On top until the hour when Stu Bale saw yellow for some desperate defending as Bourneville came back strongly with a series of forward based attacks, one of which was held up over the South line. Eatough grabbed his second and the visitors fourth try converted by Warner again making the most of the man advantage and just a two point gap in South’s favour.
Gareth Clarke closed out the game with his second try after some swift running and offloading by speedster Gareth Kerr. Glover couldn’t add the conversion.
From the resultant kick off Glover took great pleasure in booting the ball out, the final whistle sounded and South were victorious – just!

Overall an entertaining end to end game for the neutral, but for the South faithful it was too close for comfort. Nail biting in the extreme!

Although it was better than last week at Sandbach there were too many errors and poor decision making at crucial times enabling Bournville to stay in the game. The visitors gave a good account of themselves gaining both a four try and losing bonus point for getting within seven at the final whistle. Souths overall defensive patterns, desire and work rate of some players need to be worked on in training before next weeks visit to Newport.

Will Ward was imperious in the lineout, as was Luke Coltman in loose play while Gareth Clarke and Chris Bale were at the cutting edge resulting in two tries apiece.

Squad: Clarke, Kerr, Cave, Smith, Greasley, Lord, Glover, Bale C, Cartwright, McLaurin, Ward, Bale S, Harris, Coltman ©, Stone, Weston, McNaughton, Langan.