Hi chaps

When Osterly cried off at the beginning of last week I knew it was going to be one of those weeks!!

I finally obtained a fixture with Law Society 3rds…that turned out to be quite a handfull.

With players away for all sorts of reasons and injuries and also a few medical problems…Rupert !! ‘s backside was in tatters and Len had a few teething problems, Malc could not get a shoe on, and so it went on …

However we manged to get 13 players together and fellt confident in our highly charged Bulldog team

First of all let me say it was a good game played in great Bulldog spirit that pushed a well trained and fit side to its limits!!

We tackled well….awesome defence …we made good breaks and scored tries….and all with only 12 players!

Once the game got under way we could see what we were up against and Roger at No 10 made good use of his long kicks and kept pushing the oppo back and putting us into contention time and time again.

Deep penetrating runs were made by the forwards with Simon and Matt driving ahead with Peter James and Steve in full support.

A snap pass and our outsides were on their way …from Roger to Ian who made a searing break then to Brad and then back inside again. This put the opposition on the back foot and we started to pull back with Martin making a quick darting move and run to go in for his first try off the season…Roger converted and we were on the score sheet.

Brad collected a high ball in his half and started a great run for the line….a nice kick ahead and they was clear for another try but he was late tackled and the ref awarded what was deservedly a penalty try….Roger banged down another conversion and we now had 14 points on the board.

Half time arrived and the opposition brought subs on…fresh legs!!!

Our defence was great with Brad talking players through the game and making tackle after tackle….Matt made some hugh hits and Simon and Peter were not far behind.

Our outsides with Ian , Roger and James all put in massive defence work and we were constantly in their half.

The lineout was missing our start jumper Steve C , who hopeful is back this week and we had a huge jumper against us at no 2.

Peter made an electric run for the line darting through the outsides but was caught just short…. again it rattled the oppo

The game was played with great spirit and everyone came off satisfied that we had a game and that we had put up such a good and challenging game to the opposition.

It is always a good sign of when players are satisfied with their game as we stayed at our clubhouse (The White Swan) until late evening.

Well done chaps and let’s get cracking for this week

MAN OF THE MATCH AWARD BRAD! Well done and well deserved

Iron Man went down with a bug late Sat morning and was bed bound for the pm….he send his apologies that he missed taking photos frame by frame of Martin’s first try…he hoped to be back to normal for our last few games with his unique brand of rugby photo journalism

In the evening we made a presentation to Deano who is now leaving for N.Zealand to join the police force over there but we think he is going to get some special rugby training in and then making a return to The Bulldogs!

PLEASE CONFIRM AVAILABILITY BY RETURN!!!!

Cheers

Colin/Tony

PS result 12 points to 30 plus ( we never count above 35)