Old heads beat young legs

A thoroughly entertaining game which saw fourteen tries, a lock on the wing, a wing driving a maul, a contrast of styles and an improbable victory.

The Fat Stags lined up at Grasshoppers to face a side drawn from workers at nearby Sky. On closer inspection most of these workers appeared to be on work experience from college and university with some even giving the appearance of having visited a gym in the last few years, a principle strongly contradictory to the Stags own training regimen.

The match followed a predictable pattern. When given quick ball the Team Sky backs used their superior speed to get on the outside of the Stags defence and rapidly make ground. When the Stags kept it tight and played directly their power produced steady gains in territory.

The score see-sawed throughout the game until a failed conversion from Sky brought the final whistle and a win by two for the Fat Stags.

The match was won by a gritty effort from the forwards who kept taking the physical challenge to the opposition and found them wanting. This was epitomised by Leon Spight who bulldozed over for a hattrick of tries. Equally important was the strength of our set piece, with both scrum and lineout creating an excellent platform. This was expertly exploited by Stephen Jones, playing the game at nine, who used some intelligent kicking to get in behind the opposition and bag himself three tries.

The drive to win spread right through the team with Yorkie Stephenson putting in some big hits in defence and Dan Aust taking the fight to the opposition and powering over for a try after literally spilling blood for the cause.

Thanks to James making his debut out of position on the wing and welcome back to Taff Jones who made his presence felt on the pitch and in the bar.