Score: Old Whitgiftians 19 - BBBRFC 14

In true Baa Baas style, the day before the match we had 12 players, on the day 20 turned up! It was a good thing too as Old Whitgiftians proved to be a young, athletic and well drilled outfit. The pitch was the biggest pitch I have ever seen and there were a lot of anxious faces amongst the forwards...and backs come to think of it, as we warmed up.

The Baas Baas had a very mixed teeam to say the least with many new faces and one or two old ones...Roger Smith has an old face. The first 20 miniutes were played at a frantic placxe and thet went over twice as their forwards and backs combined well to get the ball out wide at pace. It took us a while to learn each others names and positions and at the end of the second half we were beginning to match them up front, especially in the front row who really raised their games and starting gaining an upper hand in the scrummaging.

We started the second half 14-0 down and made a few replacements in the backs adding some pace. The first 15 minutes of the half were inspirational as the forwards constantly out fought and out witted the opposition and it wasn't long before we went over to score a try which was subsequently converted and we were very much in it. The momentum and high spirits saw us dominate again for a further 10 minutes, with forwards and backs driving up the middle and playing hard aggressive rugby which seemed to upset our somewhat younger and more prima donna like opposition. We scored again and it was converted to bring us level. Unfortunately our fitness told and a break away try in the last ten saw us lose by 7 points which was a shame but no-one minded that much as we had just put in a remarkable performance against good opposition who play regular league rugby together, compared to a team who had never played together, some hadn't played for 4 years, and we had to carry 4 Kiwis!

Men of the match - definitely the front three (apparently Kev is training with Phil Taylor this week)

Lachy Monroe