Belper get stuck in the mud

Belper 1st XV 5 - Uttoxeter 1st XV 11

Following the bad weather of the week belpers pitch reached new levels of stickyness, with the running taking twice the usual effort, both teams were slowed some what in there pace.

Belper opened the brighter with the forwards driving into the visitors 22 only to be tackled close to the line on several occasions, the
tables turned with the visitors breaking belpers defence down and with 20 minutes left in the first half the uttoxeter flyhalf broke through the belper mid field only to be tackled by blackwell who crunched into the player stopping him in his tracks, the ref adjudged this to be a high tackle and yellow carded blackwell sinn binning him for 10 minutes.

despite going down to 14 men belper started to play some good rugby with the ball being spun out to the backs and it was Shepherd making his 1st team return who ran in the first try of the match following a quick tap penalty from Lyon who spun wide to tennick who drew his opposite number and popped the ball out to shepherd who avoided 2 tackles to score in the corner.

This seemed to get the visitors tails up and within minutes of the restart they had equalised following a pop down from the line seeing the flanker charge through avoiding the attentions of shepherd to score in the corner.

the score at half time was 5-5 and in the second half the visitors experienced pack seemed to control the game with belper being held in thew rucks and mauls and even loosing the odd line out. the visitors then took 2 chances to use the wind to convert to penalties and despite hard work and total commitment from the belper team they failed to break through the visitors defence giving uttoxeter a 11-5 victory.