First Half line-up

1 Graham Beckford (Capt) 2 Bob Copping 3 Shannon Neyland

4 Chris (Psyco) Edwards 5 Nick Wells

6 Carl (ZigZag) Goodey 7 Chris (Glove) Milne 8 Stewart Faben

9 Chris (Flora) Beddow 10 Daray Horn 15 Roger McGachan

11 Lloyd Smart 12 Will Clear 13 Colin Weir 14 Jay Hall

Manager: Rob Bevington

Second Half line-up

1 Rik Relph 2 Sam Vail 3 Richard Cowley

4 Nolan Vujevic 5 Ken (Rocka) Pearce

6 Chris (Psyco) Edwards 7 Carl (ZigZag) Goodey 8 Stewart Faben

9 Ritz Steytler 10 John Bateson 15 Roger McGachan

11 Jake Ward 12 Jay Hall 13 Antony Brown 14 Eddie (BillBob) Murphy

Manager: Rob Bevington

Match report by Rob Bevington

Football is a game of 2 halves….the old saying goes! Well now you can add rugby to this cliché.

We set out against a Mildenhall team who were top of the next league above us. We had a solid starting XV and showed great technical prowess in the first 10 mins from kick-off. We took the game to Mildenhall in the forwards and made sure every hit was solid and in numbers. The scrums were hard, with a war of attrition especially in the front row. We were getting good clean ball and distributing it quickly to the backs where we were using it in various ways to keep the Yanks guessing.

The 'Gades were on third phase ball deep in the Mildenhall half when the only tactics they could use to stop the marauding forwards were illegal ones and we were rewarded our hard work with a penalty which was slotted over by Darey. We were then tested on our defence which stood up admirably to a strong forward surge. Darey cleared our lines with a kick in-field which was brilliantly chased down by Will and Jay. We managed to win back possession through our sheer numbers arriving before their defence could regroup. The ball was out to the backs and a missed pass out to Lloyd who jinxed past 2 players to open up their backs and superb support by Colin gave the option of an easy offload for him to score. Fabio slotted the conversion almost from the touchline.

Almost immediately from the restart Darey hoofed the ball 60 yards upfield. Mildenhall's only player defending decided to wait for the ball to come to a standstill after bouncing into the post which gave Lloyd and Will enough time to close him down and after Will hammered him in the tackle the ball was released for the easiest of tries for Lloyd with none of their other players within 40 yards of the ball! Darey got the conversion to put a justified 17-0 score on the board. It was looking to be a faultless half until on 35mins we lapsed a little and missed a couple of low tackles in our own 22 and allowed their fly-half to score, with even his big-ears unable to slow him down enough before the line.

The half time whistle blew and we were looking comfortable (if not tired and bruised) at 17-7. We then made wholesale changes with around 12 changes to the team, ensuring everyone got at least half a game.

We went out for the second half and were put under immediate pressure which we held up to for a while. We were not able to clear our lines quick enough, with a bit of panic meaning we played ourselves into a bit of trouble. We did not tackle hard enough or low enough meaning Mildenhall were able to offload and cross our line (with a hint of stepping into touch, that even Stevie Wonder, at night, wearing Roy Orbison's glasses would have spotted), unfortunately our linesman, who shall remain nameless, did not notice this flagrant error and was immediately removed of his duties to concentrate on writing his match report!

We tried to penetrate but struggled to get clean ball and use it well. We were over-run in parts, but held our own and never backed out of a tackle, with Bill-Bob once again showing that getting your body in the way is the next best thing to tackling low and he was just one of many backs who had to spend the majority of the half defending hard and never shirked their responsibility. Their fitness/ability/technique/luck, call it what you want, finally told and they scored another couple of tries which they converted to put a slant on the scoreboard in their favour 17-26. We fought back with another try, scored by The Glove but they took advantage of our tiredness and scored again to run out winners 24-33. A moral victory, and therefore still undefeated this season for the Renegade Renegades!

Try

Colin Weir 1
Lloyd Smart 1
Chris "The Glove" Milne 1

Penalty

Daray 1

Conversion

Stewart Faben 2
Daray Horn 1

Drop Goal

Nominations

Player of the match :Jay Hall Doughnut of the match: Psycho.