Belper 1st XV 20 v Amber Valley 1st XV 15

On a overcast and fairly gloomy afternoon, Belpers old rivals Valley came to town. Earlier in the season Valley had beaten Belper Quite convincingly with a better drilled and more structured side, Saturday was a different Kettle of fish.

Belper welcomed back JHolmes to flyhalf with Dymond un available, Young J Nailer debutised at Scum half and Coombes returned to the centers.

Despite changes in the backs, Belper started well, competing for the ball and taking the game to Valley. Belper opened the scoring following a clearance kick from Valley being kept in by Skipper Blake who ran the ball 20 yards from halfway into the visitors half, then chipped forward only to be tackled off the ball. However with the ball bouncing forward, quick thinking from Naylor saw him dart forward, pick up and score under the posts to give Belper the lead.

Emslee kicked the conversion, then moments later furthered the lead with a penalty kick 25 yards out wide of the posts following Valley's handling on the floor.

Valley were soon battering at Belper's defence with the forwards taking the ball deep into Belper's 22. Belper held firm with Inns and Dakin knocking the Valley offence backwards in the tackle. Despite the pressure Valley's hooker lost control momentarily and stamped on a hand costing his side a penalty. This allowed Belper to relieve the pressure when Valley looked like scoring.

Belper, following further pressure from Valley, saw a mis-placed pass charged down by Shepherd in his 22 who proceeded to kick and chase 3 times dribbling the ball over the line, but as he went for the try he was tackled off the ball by Valley's athletic full-back, thus giving Belper a penalty try which was converted by Emslee, giving Belper a 17-0 lead.

This definitely got Valley's heads onto the game and for the rest of the half they tackled harder and kept possession resulting in 2 well taken tries, one from the charging full back and another from missed tackles, seeing the fly-half jink in near the posts, one of their tries was converted so the half time score was 17-12 to Belper.

The second half saw 3 subs with Garret and Gray coming to the fray and Tolan coming on to face his younger brother and nephew (not the same person, he's not from Ambergate!).

With the changes made Belper continued how they had started the game with Man of the Match Naylor recycling the ball and feeding the backs with Coombes battering holes and feeding Gray and Blake on the wings. Both players being stopped short on a couple of occassions with good tackling from Valley's back row and backs.

One moment of the match which would have perhaps been better forgotten was when Blackwell charged forward and chipped to chase only to be spear tackled, with the referee unsighted the game carried on, and at this point the game seemed to lose its friendly competitive edge to a more niggly angry game, with both sides leaving the boot in and occassionaly tackling techniques looking like kung fu moves. Belper's final score of the game came following a good run in the centres from Emslee leaving players in his wake only to be tackled high in front of the posts, Emslee got up and slotted to give Belper a 20-12 lead.

Valley managed to score a further penalty with 10 minutes to go.

Belper did what they do best and soaked up everything Valley could throw at them and despite a late run with Blake tackling on the line to save a certain try Belper held firm to win 20-15. Belper were congratulated by president Anderson who commented on how the new players are a credit to themselves and their coach C Barden.

Belper 2nds won 20-16 at Melbourne despite trailing 16-3 at half time with Laven, Dyson and Woodward all scoring trys, and J Blount kicking 1 conversion and a penalty.