May & Baker A XV

FRIENDLY – 8^th September 07

May and Baker 5 .v. 56 Romford & Gidea Park

 Last Saturday May and Baker’s second string got their campaign started with a warm up friendly against Romford & Gidea Park. Due to numerous players missing due to holidays, injuries, and weddings the club come together to find to sides for the weekend.

Sadly, the second team were hit quite badly with first team call ups, but the 18 remaining players held their heads high and did the club proud! A few new recruits proved that they will be pushing for a place in the team.

Romford broke the deadlock on opening day, when their centre found a gap to crash threw. Despite this, Baker’s hit straight back, from the kick off Colin Combden chassed the ball and combined with Danny Green they earned a good turn over, that quick hands gave new boy Andy Gore scoring from the wing. (And FINALLY someone keeps to the rules and buys a jug!!!) The conversion was missed.

The rest of the first half was a frustrating encounter. The match was evenly matched but Romford managed to add another two scores before the half time whistle. Had it not been for the tackling of Ross Williams and Chris Young the score line could have been worse. Spirit was still high in the M & B camp.

To the disappointment of the team it did not take long before Romford had put another score on the board. B’s tried to make a come back from the back row and scrum half Liam Power, who put Alan White threw on his return & also gifted Gary Lock a run down the wing that he was unable to finish.

As the half wore on fitness showed out as Romford scored numerous tries in the last 10 minutes to make the scoreboard stand out. It did not reflect the Baker’s performance.

The fitness needs to improve as next week the second team welcome back league rugby, as they host a strong Upminster side. As always we welcome everyone! After the game you could tell that more of us lads need to be training, lets get over there and start training together and getting familiar with each other and hopefully our endurance will improve aswell! As always I would like to say a big thanks to the people who came to make some noise for the boys.

After the game we found out acting scrum half Liam Power suffered a broken wrist. We would like to thank Liam for his effort to soldier on and wish him all the best in his recovery!!!

MAN OF THE MATCH: Mickey Engwell

SQUAD: Harry Lisbon, Colon Combden, Tony Byrne, Alan White, Ricky Hine, Danny Green, Andy Yarrow, Gary Lock, Liam Power, Matt Barritt, Garry O’ Sullivan, Mickey Engwell, Ross Williams, Andy Gore, Jamie Yates, Ryan Bone, Chris Young.