Colts gain valuable experience in tough losing battle
Captain russ pike was yet again forced into making changes to his squad with absentees and no shows he called on the depth of the colts team calling up Mike nash who was making his debut for the 1st team along with john edwards, ben stacey and alex watkins all of whom had already made their debuts throughout the course of the last few months. All 4 lads played extremely well and certainly didnt look out of place when on the field of play, with these lads involved in the match day 18 it meant that 13 of the squad were under the age of 23 a remarkable achievement for burnhams strong youth set up which has produced these players. So with a late cry off from stu blake piper was moved to number 8 with nash making his first start at 9 and george scott was making a welcome return in replace of alan house who was on a pilgrimage to the vatican to see the new pope.
Burnham started well applying pressure from the off with good clean quick ball supplied from the forwards and with the wind elisi was playing an astute kicking game, constantly putting chosen hill onto the back foot and keeping them in their half isnt want long before burnham got onto the score board through captain russ pike who skipped and danced his way past 3 defenders to score the first try. piper conv 7-0.
Burnham kept on the pressure and were again rewarded for their efforts through josh holder (who gave up his day at fashion college to play) who barrelled his way over from 5 yards. piper conv 14-0.
The boys in blue were really on the front foot now and were playing some sublime rugby at times and with a 5 metre scrum from the oppositions line another score was on the cards but with piper unable to control the ball at the base of the scrum due to the speed of which the boys in front were pushing it spilled out for chosens 6 (who had a fine game) to dive on and within seconds chosen were down the other end from a huge kick by their very effective fly half which was followed up by a strong chase from the full back who touched down to take the halftime score to 14-7.
With the second half under way the weather changed for the worse with the rain making it difficult for both sets of players struggling to make do with the slippery ball.
Chosen hit back with 2 converted tries to put themselves into the lead and you would of thought with the weather opening up so would burnhams defences and but they held strong and kept chosen at bay to then work their way down to their try line for mike hocking to smash through after good work from the forwards to take the score 19-21.
2 more tries at towards the end of the game saw chosen pull away and finish the game 19-31 winners.
The positives from the game is that the young lads never took a backward step, werent afraid to attack and were also resolute in defence against a strong physical glouscester side who were playing playing a league above this time last year. Also to create the chances and sustain the pressure on them when players were out of position and others never playing this standard is a real credit plus with 2 of chosens tries scored from burnham getting turned over on chosens 5 metre line then the score would definately be different.
The future looks solid for burnham well done lads.