Longton 2nds 22 Burton 'A' 12 on 19th January 2008

Burton visited near rivals Longton and made a solid start to the game spending the first twenty-five minutes on the home try line and nearly got a score but knocked on when driving over the line. But the hosts hit back and a period of defending followed before Burton broke out to race down field. Unfortunately Burton lost possession on the Longton 10 metre line but some great work by Matt Turner and Tom Atherton saw the ball regained and Rich Culley raced off towards the line. He broke through the opposition ranks before feeding Darryl Banton who scored under the posts and then convert to give Burton a 7-0 lead.

But as usual from the restart Burton failed to gather and Longton’s forwards were able to drive over for an unconverted try. Burton continued to play the better rugby and twice went close before a second score came when Ben Peach broke down the blindside and powered over to score and increase Burton’s lead to 12-5. However, late pressure and some dubious refereeing allowed Longton to take the lead with two tries from forward mauls.

Trailing 15-12 at the break the next score would be vital and both sides tried to find the edge with Burton playing the rugby, while Longton employed’ bully-boy’ tactics to try and intimidate the Burton players. Ten minutes before time Longton at last played some rugby and scored a good converted try to increase their lead to 22-12. Burton continued to press until the final whistle but just could not get a score and so for the second week running they lost a game they deserved to get more from.