Candidate for top try of the season
WITH a squad of 18, Bourne felt confident of extending their winning streak at Skegness.
Their opponents were in second place in the Lincs Merit Table and a mouth-watering clash lay in prospect.
Bourne made a strong start, dominating their opponents in the scrums but with both sides feeling each other out, the game remained scoreless until 20 minutes into the first half, when it burst into life.
With the ball on Bourne's 22, Xanti Xipu looked to find John Burgin for a clearance kick, but fired the ball past him to within 10 yards of the Bourne line. Chasing back, the full-back found two opponents bearing down on him, but evaded both with a shimmy and set off downfield.
Burgin chose the difficult option of attacking the short side of the ruck, but had no difficulty in finding the gap. He shrugged off another the challenge, and created just enough space between his final opponent and the touchline to crash over the line for one of the tries of the season.
Tom Bishop and Ben Thornburn both made breaks but lacked support, and when the referee reduced Bourne to 14 men, Skegness made the extra man tell and after a sustained period of pressure to score in the corner.
Both sides maintained their momentum after the interval but Bourne were unable to rediscover the form of the early exchanges.
Skegness' half backs exploited gaps in the Bourne line and scored two further tries.
With 10 minutes left and caution being thrown to the wind, good handling in the backs saw Bishop break clear. Desperate Skegness defence saw them infringe at the ruck, and from the resulting tap penalty skipper John Hume burrowed over.
But it was too little, too late, and Bourne were left to rue their lack of urgency in the middle 40 minutes.
Bourne: J Burgin; A Binns, T Bishop, B Thornburn, N Oglesbee; T Dixon, X Xipu, R Coupland, S Sleight, S Pick, J Adams, S Hirschfeld, J Hume, A Sims, O Sadler. Repl: T Adams, J Turner, D Hill.
Bourne's 2nds/Vets are away at Melton this weekend at 2.15pm.
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Weather for Bourne
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -6 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: -4 C to -0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
