Vipers 31 Biggleswade 17
Biggleswade lost their first league game when they travelled the seventy miles to play Vipers in south Leicester.
The match was all square at 17 points each when a moment’s rashness saw a Biggleswade player sent to the bin for a high tackle. This unbalanced the scrum which let Vipers take the lead where they remained for the rest of the game.
Biggleswade had four changes from the week before. Joe Rowntree returned at scrum half, Sam Woods switched to the centre, Charlie Franklin to full back (in the continued absence of injured Jack Sharp) and Jack Hill on to the bench.
There was a large crowd of enthusiastic home supporters on the veranda over looking the pitch. They were stunned into silence by an early Biggleswade score. Another soon looked likely.
From the restart Biggleswade threatened the try line again but were deemed to have gone over the top close to the line.
The line out was again with too many balls for comfort going over the top of the jumper’s grasping fingers. Kyle Loan the king of thrower ins is being missed.
The scrums seemed to go one way and then the other. One moment Biggleswade were threatening carnage. The next an eight-man Vipers heave saw them struggling to win clean ball.
10-17 down at half-time Biggleswade mounted a big assault at the start of the second half. Recycled ball left and right split the Vipers defence which saw fly-half Michael Hall slice through for a try under the posts
But in the end, it was not enough. Vipers exploited 14-man Biggleswade to score a try and then 2 more to get a bonus point.
The result was the worst margin of defeat in a league match since losing to Stewarts & Lloyds in the first game last season.
There is no first XV game this week-end. The next game is another lengthy away trip to Newbold on Avon who the Club has never played.
Biggleswade slip to 2nd in the table, but it is a strong position for the team who only came up to this league for this season, with 4 games to go till the half way point.
