Biggleswade RUFC

Biggleswade and St Ives (Biggy Bulls) U16s 31 - 26 Leighton Buzzard U16s

The Under 16s beat Leighton Buzzard on Sunday 2 Oct after holding off a second-half comeback to claim their first victory since their squad merger back in January.

Biggy Bulls welcomed Logan Williams, Alfie ‘Laces’ Tilley, Ollie Wootley, Eddie Dolan and Daniel for their first games of the season and also sportingly loaned the opposition 4 players to enable a full 15 v 15 match to take place. 

Both teams started slowly with errors at the line-out and a few dropped balls but it was scrum-half Spencer Hall who took the game by the scruff of the neck and opened the scoring with a trademark dart from the back of a ruck. He bumped off tacklers twice his size and dived over a crowded try line to score. This was all possible because of great rucking from the forwards, in particular from Duncan Lewis and Harrison Lee.

Kristian Hawkins secured yet another ruck turnover, which allowed fly-half Donncha Blake to put Dylan Robinson into space on the halfway line. A series of dummy passes saw him make good ground before using his pace to evade the winger and run behind the posts to score and make the conversion kick a simple task for Blake.

The Bulls began to dominate the play and line breaks from Declan O’Neill and Dylan Lee took the ball deep into the opposition 22. One offload would surely have led to another try, but instead the ball was recycled and given to Fin Taylor to crash through the defence and score under the posts for his first try of the season. The try was converted by Blake to leave the score at 19-0.

Leighton Buzzard had come back from 30 points down the previous week and mounted another recovery here by scoring a try either side of half time to pull back within 7 points.

Twice in the second half, Dylan Robinson chased down a kick into space behind the defensive line. The first was a bouncing ball on the 22, which he recovered then beat the winger and full back to score. The second was a race to the line with Ethan Hawkins and Casey Royal who both could have scored but it was Robinson who pounced first to claim his hat-trick of tries. 

With 20 minutes to go, the match seemed to be going the way of the home side, but Buzzard showed great resilience and pulled back two tries to create a nervous last five minutes. The visitors needed a converted try to level the scores but Taylor was not about to let that happen. He stole the ball in the maul just 5 metres from his own line, allowing Sam Gledson to relieve the pressure with a clearance kick. Some epic tackling from Robinson, with four dominant tackles in a row, extinguished Buzzards’ hopes and a long-awaited victory was secured!