Score: Old Hurst Johnians 38 - BBBRFC 31

On another very hot day the Baa Baas were greeted with the unpleasant surprise of uncontested scrums for the second time this year. The promise that the offending prop would turn up of course never materialised.
Starting up the hill in the first Half, the Baa Baas had the measure of their opposition only to be thwarted by the final pass not going to hand. But after twenty mins the Baa Baas found themselves 15 points down after 3 quick breakaway tries. The Open game was not favouring us going up hill and an effort to spin the ball wide after 2 or 3 phases thereby trying in some of the opposition was thought the be the answer.
This new tactic of driving up the middle was starting to work and a good movement bought the Baa Baas first try, with Lewis Reilly looping excellently on the left, the opposition eventually ran out of defenders.
With half time beckoning the Baa Baas struck again to turn around 15 - 12 down, but now with the slope in our favour.
Unfortunately this is when our first injuries started to happen, Banter shredded this hamstring, and Ian MacEachern damaged his calf and though manfully played on was not nearly as effective. With a reorganised back line the Opposition sensed a chance and againg started to exploit the right hand side with two quick tries.
The Baas fought back again with two very good tries from Roger Smith and Ant Cavillini. Roger who was playing out of position at fullback had a good game in difficult circumstances. The Baa Baas then went ahead and the winning post seemed to be in sight, only to be cruelly denied by a vital knock on going to the opposition and them running the length of the pitch to score.
Kev Bowden needs to be congratulated on not wanting to give a scoring pass when the whole team was begging him to. Jim Brownlie for playing on after getting seriously cut under the eye, and even though vision was limited playing a very effective game and Gary Stewart who's nose ended up near his right ear, but didn't seem to notice. Finally many thanks to Steve Ives who filled in at scrum half, and did a great job.
In the end our tackling was poor and our fitness was not as good as theirs. Thank you to all who played and well done.

Jules Samuel