1st XV 7 - 27 Manchester

Match date	Saturday March 29, 2008
Match time	14:00
Match location	Away
Team	1st XV
Opponent	Manchester

Teams ; Manchester - Coulbeck, Wynne, Wilson, Rawlings, Kuadey, Wainwright, Bramhall, Gadd, Platt, Flynn, Ralph, Owen, Eboral, Dew, Moss. Replacements ; Mantel, Davies, Keep, Knight.

Stourbridge _ Jarvis, Bressington, Cook, Billig, Hall, Petty, Pointon ( Richardson), Olver (Sturdy), Gerry, Tideswell (Rowlands), Muldowney, Hughes (Knight), White, Jordan, Jenner.

Scorers; Manchester. Tries Eboral, Wilson, Ralph ( 3). Conversions Wynne (1)

Stourbridge. Tries Gerry. Conversions Bressington (1)

The battleground of The Somme would do justice to the freezing, soaking, windswept quagmire endured by both sides and officials in this keenly anticipated 10 pointer game at Grove Park on Saturday, but anything goes in Rugby even hypothermia. What a huge disappointment for the 200 odd travelling supporters whose chanting and singing of " Amazing Grace " and " Happy Birthday" were unable to lift Mitch's boys to the heights of performance witnessed at home against Otley.

Losing the toss and playing with the wind in the first half Stourbridge would hopefully have come away with a first half lead but this was not to be and a fifth minute injury to Ben Hughes resulting in his replacement by Pete Knight on 25 minutes meant that our line out was not at full strength for most of the game. Manchester perhaps sensed this and when Stuart Eboral stormed over after a strike against the head, followed 10 minutes later by an Andre Wilson try after creative blind side attacks from scrum half James Bramhall and the elusive Selorm Kuadey the writing seemed to be on the wall. However, into the wind conversion attempts both failed and the next 10 minutes showed the visitors at their best with Ben Gerry going over after a maul and Ali Bressington converting for a 10-7 half time score.

At half time Adam Sturdy replaced Adrian Olver and Tom Richardson replaced Dan Pointon suffering from an earlier shoulder injury. The weather conditions progressively worsened over the final 40 minutes and despite a couple of incisive breaks by Rod Petty it was rare for Stourbridge to come out of their half. You could count on one hand the amount of passes anyone of our 11,12,13,14,and 15 received after half time and with frozen hands and the ball like a bar of soap (hot water bottles would have been more welcome) they were probably very thankful. Knock ons and lineout errors contributed to our woes and clearance kicks seemed to reach the heavens before going more than 5 yards. Tom Richardson's first clearance attempt was charged down by 2nd row Paul Ralph in the 53rd minute and on 63 minutes he again scored after a Stourbridge line out went disastrously wrong ensuring the treasured 5 points that we had all gone to see but in reverse. Gareth Wynne converted to make it 22-7.

But no complaints - Manchester fully deserved this comprehensive victory. The last few minutes witnessed a red card for stamping for Duncan White more out of frustration than anything else and a yellow card for Gareth Wynne for retaliation followed by Paul Ralph's hat-trick try (unprecedented for a 2nd row ? ) and Manchester's fifth try. We had never this year been on the receiving end of 5 tries. So we now need 15 points from three games and either Manchester or Otley to slip up. Rumour has it that Andy Trinham has already filled one coach to support Redruth on April 12th.