On a bonny Decembers day perfect for rugby football the resurgent Burnham team looked to continue their rich vein of home form against a high flying Exeter Uni team who were coming off a 71-o rout of Tiverton. Burnham had narrowly lost out to a strong Devonport Services team the week previous after leaving it too late on the game to come to life.
With 5 of the team which travelled to Devonport unavailable due to being at Twickenham and Adam Peters and Tom Stevens spending most of their Saturday taking cute photos there were many changes to the starting pack. Most notable was Adam Sharp starting at hooker, his first game for at least a couple of seasons and the welcome return of Luke Gowan after taking some time out to mourn the loss of his peace lilly.
Against an Exeter team who love to use the ball Burnham set out to retain possession and keep the ball away from the students, as well as up the workrate on Defence. The tone was set from the first minute of the game with players offering themselves up for carries, support play being top drawer and a defensive line that were hungry for work.
Burnham when in possession started causing the students a lot of headaches and strong carries from Otti Fakaosi Jr Pifeleti , Stuart Blake and Ed Lewis‘the white lomu’ were getting them the right side of the gain line. After dominating territory and pressure Sam Lewis cleared the ruck with one of his trademark wormburners out to Alex Watkins who did well to hold on to such an average pass, distributed along the line until the ball found Otti ‘dropsy ojo’, who took off on an arcing run which took him outside his man and then offloaded in the tackle to send away Brandon Pettitt on a 20m run in to the line. Alex Watkins knocked over the extras to put the home side out 7-0.
Straight from the kick off Burnham recycled possession and started to assert more pressure on the students, who started to lose their discipline and start infringing around the rucks, leading to a few penalties which Burnham chose to kick for the corner and set for the line out drive. With first choice hooker Adam Peters away on a photo shoot with BFF Tom Stevens, Ed Lewis took the responsibilities of chucking the ball in, and although the lineout had a few wobbles he did a fine job. The author blames captain Ross Cameron for this has he has far too big of a head.
After phase upon phase of Burnham Pressure an overlap was created and after some nice hands through the backs Matty ‘hot chocolate’ Love was put into space and proceeded not only to cruise into the corner but evade would be tacklers all the way round and dot down under the black dot. A class finish with some great lead up work from forwards and backs alike. This was converted by Alex Watkins for a 14-0 lead.
Shortly before half time while under more immense pressure from the home side Exeter lost two players to a nasty head clash. This stopped the game for some time and a longer half time was called. After some good work by the ref the game started for the 2nd half. After being guilty of switching off in previous games Burnham had no such issues today and hammered back in to the students with renewed vigour.
Exeter had more ball at the start of the 2nd half but Burnhams defence was outstanding with great chat and hard tackling coming from the likes of Luke Gowan and the midfield of ‘ Joshua ‘vlad’ Holder and Richard ‘the axe’ Muskett , (there was a rumour that the axe got bounced but these are false claims) each attack was repelled with vigour.
Then it was the turn of Burnham who took the attack right down into the students 22m and after some time Alex ‘ andy goode’ Watkins dummied to Otti and proceeded to glide in under the posts. Although glide may be a bit generous has it was one of the slowest short range tries ever seen on a rugby pitch. As a result of this Alex twinged a hammy and Jordan Paul managed to shank the kick in front of the posts. 19-0 to Burnham.
Burnham swung straight back onto attack and after more pressure and some great carries from Matt ‘pete’ Fear who had come on to replace the injured Adam sharp and Matthew Slater, who at one stage actually straightened the line, drew his defender then threw an Audacious dummy to slice through the defence it was inevitable that Burnham scored out wide in Jordan Paul, who finished a movement which included a classic dummy line from Chris ‘selfie’ Warner and Slates ‘the angry postman’ and great hands once again from the backs. A try straight from the training paddock. 24-0 Burnham.
The last 10 minutes of the game Exeter spent hard on attack trying all they could to get something out of the game but Burnhams defence was outstanding. It would have been easy with the game in the bag to ease off and let them in for a soft try but this was not happening as every man dragged himself off the floor to make the next hit. Finally the ball was turned over and the ball was cleared, Burnhams line intact and the game over.
A great Performance by Burnham, beating one of the top sides while missing regular starters and doing it so emphatically shows the belief and talent that this squad is starting to develop. Man of the match was a tough decision but went to Sam Lewis who made up for his wormburners with some courageous defence and great communication. An honourable mention to Lee Machine who made it through 5 tricky minutes without shattering his glass ankle.
A great performance .