poor discipline gives wells victory
With burnhams squad now fully stretched due to injuries and absent players captain russ pike manged to scramble a squad of 18 together with 2nd team captain matt slater back from injury on the bench to strengthen an all ready strong front row.
Burnham again started well with early pressure resulting in a well worked try in the corner by matt love with piper converting it put burnham into a 7-0 lead. Wells’s young moblie side were not allowed to settle and burnham rush defence was working well forcing them to kick a lot of ball away. halfway into the second half burnham forced their way down into wells’s 22 through a series of rolling mauls which wells could not contain with and ended up conceding a penalty for piper to convert to push them into a 10-0 lead.
But this was the end of burnhams scoring for the first half, wells showed why they have been such a success this year with simple basics applied and a back row that was at every ruck stealing alot of ball and getting away with alot of infringements unseen by the referee but if you get away with it then you keep doing it. It was from a turn over that well’s big centre burst through the defence to score their conversion was missed but a penalty soon later took the halftime score to 10-8.
Burnham were still in the lead but now their rush defence was being constantly penalised by the ref with certain players giving away more than their fair share of pens in fact 8 penalties were awarded just for offside. Wells could sense that just with a bit of patience and keeping their composure they knew that they would get the breaks and get themselves into scoring positions. From a penalty wells kicked to the corner and from the lineout they took a clean catch and with burnhams forwards switching off they got their try form a rolling maul to put the score at 10-15 along with another kick at goal from another penalty they stretched their score to 10-18. Burnhams committment and attitude was beginning to be questioned and with that they pulled their socks up and decided to pull together and play rugby so with that pressure was put on wells and a scrum was awarded and after several warnings the inevitable happened another pushover try piper conv 17-18.
Straight from the kick off though burnham were penalised straight away with piper going off his feet competiting for the ball in front of the posts. 17-21.
The last 5 mins burnham through everything at wells and credit to their defence they held firm along with at least 3 poor decisions from the referee burnham could not get over.
Firstly a big credit to wells who have had a great season and its clear to see why they are in the top 3 with simple basics and a strong work ethic for each other.
Burnham have had a somewhat tough season so far and with 5 games left all is not lost but the discipline is a big problem for the team at the moment and must be addressed along with their attitude to each other, first up tackles and to remember why they play in the first place which should be to enjoy it win lose or draw.
Tough lessons to be learnt and hands held up with honesty at training.
Burnham are again at home on saturday with a rearranged fixture against chosen hill former pupils along with all 6 nation games shown live on the big screen. So we ask for all support to come down and be loud and encourage from the sidelines to get burnham firing again.