Starting line-up

1 Rik Relph 2 Maddog 3 Richard Cowley

4 Matt Price 5 Sam Vail

6 Owain Harrison 7 Chris Milne 8 Carl Goodey

9 Jack Cowley 10 Rob Bevington 15 Graham Smith

11 Jay Hall 12 Chris Beddows 13 Colin Weir 14 Mark Langley

16 Bill Agg 17 Adam Stewart

Manager: Nick ‘Tweety Pie’ Nicholson

Match report by Sam Vail

The Renegades strode onto the field of play and marveled at it's size. There are bigger pitches in the world, but not many. It was in a pretty skanky condition with an ocean of flattened mole hills.

The young, fit opposition started well and scored a try within the first couple of minutes. After about 6 minutes of play, an Ely players attempted to tackle Rob but was bewitched by Rob's running style and the player broke something in his knee. Nasty. Retire to the dressing room and wait for the ambulance.

20 minutes later both teams transferred to an adjacent pitch to continue play.

The break seemed to have affected Ely more than Cottenham (who welcomed the breather), and the Renegades came strong and hard at Ely. Rob made a strong run and passed to Jay who ran round some opposition to score a try in the corner. Rob was unfortunate with the conversion, kicking into the wind from about a mile away.

Ely scored again but the Renegades were having some success. A Renegades maul trundled 20 yards up the pitch, which would have been about half the pitch at home! The Renegades crossed the line a second time at the hands of Brummie guest Mark Langley, unfortunately, it was disallowed as the ref had been distracted by one of his facial spots bursting.

"Mark's effort was totally a try, pity that young ref was at the wrong end of the pitch!" Owain Harrison

Late in the half, after sustained forwards pressure, Rob gathered and flung his body across the line to score the Renegades second try. Again, Rob was unlucky with his conversion attempt. A pity he wasted all that time kicking conversions during the injury break!

"My drop kicking from kick off was appalling!" Rob Bevington

The second half was an uphill fight for the Renegades Veterans. Renegades line-out had not been going well as Maddog was unfamiliar with the Glove's jumping style. Scrums were generally consistant and we were even winning a couple against the head. Carl made some strong runs from the base of the scrum, supported excellently by the Glove and Owain. Jack had another good game at number 9, also making some hard tackles against the Ely number 8. Graham at fullback was too often left to deal with a charging Ely player, something the Renegades need to sort out for subsequent games, but did extremely well none-the-less. More Renegades pressure late in the second half came to nothing as the Ely winger broke through for a final converted score right at the death to make the score line a little more flattering for Ely than it should have been.

"Their hands were all over the ball on the floor in the rucks! Then they screamed like kids if our hands came down below our heads, that we were playing the ball on the floor!" Rob Bevington

"To be fair to them, they only had their hands in the ruck to rip it out of my hands, the boat race might do with a mention and their 7 kept on complaining I was trying to cut out his air supply, whether that means he was struggling to keep up and had asthma i don't know!" Chris "The Glove" Milne

Good to see 'Priceless' Matt Price getting stuck in with the verbals. Great effort from Richard and Rik, both propping and lifting in the line. Flora, Colin and Mark all stepped up with some super passing and running, an all-round good team performance.

"Probably also worth mentioning the pitch was at least the size of a small uneven African nation! Otherwise a great game to be part of. As always a v.strong performance from Jay, some champagne handling from the backs, and a great effort form the forwards to keep up with the very fast moving pace." Carl "Zigzag" Goodey

"Great game on Saturday, lots of hard work against a much younger, fitter and well drilled team. We should be proud that we kept in the game!" Sam Vail

Try

Jay Hall 1
Rob Bevington 1

Penalty

Conversion

Rob Bevington 0 from 2

Nominations