Newark, Southwell and Boston All Contributed to Entertaining Last-minute Fixture

Newark & Southwell Barbarians 55, Boston Seconds 5

On pitch 3 this afternoon at Kelham Road, an eclectic mix of vets, 2nd and 3rd teamers looking for a game, Colts and a leavening of veteran Southwell Redmen took on the travelling Boston 2nds in a hastily-arranged gala of proper social rugby, impeccably refereed by the firm hand of Newark’s own Maddie Dobb.

The Ba-bas opened up the scoring 5 minutes in after some good running by colt Ed Armstrong and Craig Fisher led to a penalty line-out on Boston’s 5m line and Josh Arundell duly crashed over for a try – 5-0.

Next in line was Joe Tinsley, after an incisive break by Matt Walton put him within sprinting distance of the try-line and he barged over for another 5-pointer – 10-0.

Not to be outdone, Walton himself scored the next 2 tries, the first after a fine steal by Ronan Matts sent the ball spinning along the line to him via Armstrong and the industrious Dan Walker, and the second a solo run off the back of a maul – 20-0.

The visitors were struggling to retain composure by this stage of the match and it was captain Ben Wells who would add the next points, after the home side slugged up the pitch in the face of fierce Boston resistance and then took advantage of a penalty to run it in from short range – 25-0.

With hard-working Craig Fisher invalided off with concussion and Matts succumbing to a momentary irritation and accompanying yellow card, the Ba-baas might easily have fizzled a bit at this point. But Ben ‘Moonlighter’ Davies showed his running skills as soon as he got on, putting the home side straight back on the attack again, recycling the ball left into the willing hands of James Doran-Williams who forced his way over for the final 5 points of the half – 30-0.

To their credit, Boston who had laboured valiantly for the first 40 minutes with little reward, came back strongly in the 3rd quarter, scoring a fine try in the opening moments and making the home forwards work hard for possession for the next twenty minutes.

But the Ba-baas were just too strong for them in the final quarter, with Akash Baaga, Dan Godfrey, Trig and co. securing great ball for Ed Armstrong to show his mazy running skills to score twice between the posts (44-5, both conv. Baaga) and man-of-the-match Walton completing his hat trick in similar fashion - 51-5, conv. Baaga. And it was down to Sam Brown’s mate Alex, wearing the 21 shirt, to close out the scoresheet with a fine run over on the right – 56-5.

Thanks due all round for a really enjoyable afternoon’s rugby:

Nik Codd for stepping in to manage and pulling on his shirt when Kash injured himself; Ryan Dickinson, Sam Brown, Joe Tinsley, Trig and the rest who all turned out at short notice and gave rock-solid performances; the lads from Southwell without whom we wouldn’t have had contested scrums for much of the second half; and last but not least, Boston 2s for turning up on spec and playing some quality rugby in good spirit.

Tries: Arundell, Tinsley, Walton (3), Wells, Doran-Williams, Armstrong (2), Alex
Conversions: Baaga (3)