Rolls Royce 'A' 90 - Belper 2nd XV 21

On a beautiful Saturday morning in November a depleted Belper 2nd XIII headed south through the Derwent Valley to face what would turn out to be a very strong Rolls-Royce 1st & 2nd team combined. Belper welcomed to their side on temporary loan Ed and Rich, filling in on the wing and in the centre. The main goal for the day was to play hard and not to give away any silly penalties as we had been doing recently. When the team had all finally arrived it was time to kick off at which point Royce's took advantage of Belper's disorganisation and quickly started piling on the points. The torrent of tries kept coming thick and fast as Belper's defensive line kept getting broken by the fast Royce's backs who often found themselves with two on one and sometimes four on one overlaps.

After the first twenty minutes Belper suddenly decide to put the pressure on and gaining some great possession in the forwards kept driving the ball down the pitch towards the Royce's line. Unfortunately Royce's still managed to find the gaps and kept on scoring. Finally Belper's persistence was paid off as John Holmes, taking advantage of a Royce's fumble, chipped the ball over the try line and chased it down to give Belper a hard fought and well deserved 5 points. Converting his own try Holmes took the Belper score up to 7.

At half time Belper's goals changed to concentrate on their defence. However they wouldn't get the chance to as for the first 15 minutes of the second half Belper found themselves camped at the Royce's end of the pitch. Gaining loads of possession and piling the pressure on the Belper forwards picked up and ran the ball for what seemed like an age. Every time coming within a gnat's chuff of the line only to be stopped by the Royce's defence, it was finally Mitch Town who found those final few inches (and another conversion from Holmes ) to take Belper up to 14 glorious points. A few minutes later Belper looked on in horror as Paul Buzzard picked up and ran a quick tap penalty. Waiting for Buzzard to get inevitably tackled, as he has done so many times before in the same situation, Belper's horror turned to looks of amazement as he bobbed and weaved his was through the Royce's line to score a long overdue try. Converted again by Holmes Belper now had 21 British points and were showing promising signs of making a come back.

However, not having the luxury of substitutes Belper found it hard to stay the Royce's attack for long and taking advantage with some fresh legs on the field they soon started piling on the points again.

Although the final scored was 90 to 21 Belper came away from the field proud of what they had achieved. They had met all their goals during the game (it is hard for me to recall any penalties that Belper gave away) and never once did they let their heads drop. Despite the score everyone had a good time and were soon laughing and joking as they watched England from the comfort of the Grapes.

Special mentions this week go to John Holmes for some near faultless kicking all afternoon; Andy York for battling hard in the face of strong opposition and even stronger boots to the head; the Belper Lineout which was again near faultless and Mitch Town for blindly trying to run straight through the Royce's man that was in the way of his ball.

Next week Belper 2nd XV take on North Derbyshire 2nd XV at home 2:30 kick off.