Long Buckby v South Leicester

Long Buckby RFC v South Leicester RFC 10/1/16

It was a sunny but cold breezy day for Souths first match of 2016 against Long Buckby.

The pitch was wet and muddy lending itself to a forward dominated match. The match started brightly with both teams clearly up for a battle but following some good pressure from Long Buckby they opened the scoring with there strong No8 scoring a try, ominously brushing off out tacklers.

Conversion was missed : 5-0 to Long Buckby.

South restarted and made it clear there were going to give it their all. We started rucking strongly, on what was a sticky difficult pitch. We were matching them up front, but Long Buckby started to attack and again forced us towards our try line, forcing there way over in the bottom corner to score a soft try.

Conversion missed from far out : 10-0 to Long Buckby

It was here that South showed some true spirit and made a clear decision to tough it out and take the game to Buckby. Jack in the centre put in some crunching tackles in what was a fantastic defensive display and South worked tirelessly to drive Buckby back into their own half. South increased the tempo and the forwards were really making the Buckby pack work for everything.

Buckby were clearly a dangerous team and had three or four strike runners who were powering towards us but we held fast, Jack smashing the centre attack down, Morgan , Charlie and the forwards throwing themselves into the rucks, excellent stuff ! Play continued up and down the pitch with Buckby making yards into our 22" but some excellent defence, lead to South stealing the loose ball and Callum making an excellent clearance to ease the pressure.

South again soaked up the pressure and made a good attack down the right wing, Zach taking a lovely pass and setting the ball beautifully for the pack to steam over. In the scrums south were a giving Buckby a torrid time, Max winning ball against the head and driving the Buckby pack back.

No further scores came for either side and the first half finished at 10-0 to Long Buckby.

The oranges did the trick at half time and with a couple of squad changes, South came out all guns blazing in the second half. Again Callum drove Long Buckby back with a good kick forcing play into their half. South rucked hard and attacked the line but Buckby absorbed the pressure but some sloppy handling from them was punished when Jack pounced on a loose bouncing ball, spun hard and dived for the line to score Souths first try.

Alex kicked a beautiful little drop goal for the extra two points making the score

10-7 to Buckby.

Long Buckby restarted and South produced some lovely play in the middle, with some nice passing between backs, Sam getting into gear and running hard at the Buckby defenders. Buckby are a classy team though and were proving a tough nut to crack, they launched another attack down the left wing, with James tackling well to slow down their strong running centre. Buckby smelled the line though and plied on the pressure winning a scrum near to a our line and from the attack off the scrum Buckby mauled and rucked their way to within couple of metres from our line and again their big no8 crashed over for a try. They kicked a well taken conversion making the score

17-7 to Long Buckby.

South replied brilliantly from the kick off, chasing the kick, winning the battle for the breakdown and Jack flipped up the loose ball, only for Charlie to come charging through onto the ball, sprinting forty yards to score a beautiful unstoppable try under the posts.

Jude stepped up for the conversion and kicked a peach through the sticks

Game on 17-14 to Long Buckby.

It was nail biting stuff now and with the clock ticking fast both sides really went for it and Buckby threw everything at the South defence, the lads showed some real grit to stop the Buckby attacks, George winning loose ball, tackles coming flying in, 100% effort to the end. The final whistle went and Buckby had just managed to snatch the win in a really hard fought match.

Lads it was fantastic today to see how you all dug deep to against a physically strong well drilled side. You tackled your hearts out, the scrum was very good, with Cam, Jude and Max proving a really effective front row ! The Buckby coach made comment that they have never been rucked so hard by any team ! The tackling was much improved but it was your concentration and commitment that was noticeably better, you showed some real spirit and belief in yourselves and despite losing you can ALL hold you heads up high for such a performance - REALLY WELL DONE ! Very proud of you all.

The man of the match was today kindly sponsored by Dave and Aileen Bullivant - thank you both. The man of the match chosen by Dave was Jack Burge And without sounding biased as he's my lad, his tackling and general play today was exceptional, well played JB !