Burnham in need of lady luck

Saturday afternoon saw burnham lock horns with old adversarys wells. Wells are in their first season of the western counties north and so far have aquitted themselves well sitting high in the top half of the table where as burnham have been struggling of late and sit in the bottom half of the table but this was a local derby and a chance for burnham to turn their season around.

With burnhams seconds on a week off the stags were able to call upon 2nd team captain matt slater to fill in the much troubled tight head position and the angry postman did very well and at times dominating his opposite number, with streeter making his second comeback from injury and again having to go off then the angry postman may well be called upon to do another job up front. Burnham also welcomed back second row alan house from a shoulder injury.

With wells’s pitch boggy, slow and with a slope then burnhams game plan was simple keep it tight and play the slope when going down with kicks into the corner.
At the start of the first half burnham came out flying and camped in wells’s half for the first 10/15 mins and kept the ball well forcing wells into giving away a penalty in front of the posts for piper to add the extras and make the score 0-3.
This was to be burnhams only contribution to the points as the rest of the first half was to be played in burnhams half where again discipline was the downfall with 5 penalties given away to offside which inevatably resulted in burnham going down to 14 with piper taking a yellow.
With only 14 men burnham stuck to the task but conceded a try through a cross field kick and lucky bounce for their full back to score under the posts. Half time score was 16-3.

Second half saw the introduction of streeter for slater and burnham playing down the slope, with this in mind the game was very much in burnhams hands.
5 minutes into the second half well’s full back suffered an unfortunate leg break and the game had to be stopped for treatment to the young lad. Burnham would like to send our best wishes and a speedy recovery to the young lad. The game was moved over to their second team pitch which was a little narrower and with a larger slope.
Back to a full 15 burnham weathered a 10 minute storm from wells to then control the game with kicks to the corner and some much improved scrummaging and lineout work. from these set pieces burnham were able to score a well worked try with support runners from alan house and bryan webb hitting holes and setting up good clean ball for the backs to switch play and allow kiwi to draw in 2 defenders and send jordy through the hole to score 16-8 with piper adding the touchline conversion taking it to 16-10.
For the first time in a long time burnham had their tails up and sensed a victory, again they worked their way into wells’s 22 and were awarded a scrum on their 5 meter line and then proceeded to drive wells over the line and with the whistle going burnham were expecting the penalty try only to their amazment their reward was a scrum to the opposition a decision which left a lot of people scratching their heads as to why.
The final few minutes burnham were camped on the oppositions try line but could not find the break through needed to win the game.
Final score was 16-10.

At last we can see the old burnham coming back and with not a single penalty given for offside in the second half then the lessons appear to be starting to be learnt.
With strong runners in the middle of the park and the strong set piece coming back then the win is just around the corner.
Burnham are at home on saturday to bridgwater in the somerset cup with the historians saying this will be the first meeting between the 2 first teams. kick off is at 2pm and would like as much support as possible.

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