Bham Solihull 19 Burton 10 on March 30th 2008

A beautiful sunny 1st day of British Summer Time, a great day for a thrilling game of Rugby, where Burton trounce the opposition in celebration of the 50th birthday of Paul Tattersall. Unfortunately, it was not to be and our performance can be summed up by quoting Phil Manning at the final whistle,  “It’s not been an auspicious day”; somewhat of an understatement! In the on-field post-match review, Phil asked our lads “what did you think of that?”and their honest, one-word reply was short, even shorter than the word “short” and starting and ending with the same letters. (No prizes for the answer). No other words were needed.

It had all started badly with a depleted squad turning up at Solihull, confused by BST, for the match which we then discovered was being played at another venue. After a late kick-off and with Andrew Tattersall and Zak Mears-Davis in our makeshift front row, our many basic errors flattered our opposition and at 20 mins, Birmingham Solihull scored and converted and we were down 7-0. 10 mins later and we were down 14-0. At 35 mins Adam Lloyd made a spirited run on the left wing and scored in the corner and we went to half time on 14-5. After a stern half-time briefing, the 2nd half started with the expectation of an improved Burton performance. We managed a few more creative moves which led to Nathan Taylor feeding Ed Watkins, who scored at 55 mins. 14-10. 5 mins later and we were down 19-10 and despite several promising runs that was the final score.

 

We know how honest our squad are and how their great character will enable them to learn from this match and bounce-back with inspiring performances at the end of the season. Things can only get better, so more auspicious days to come.

 

Happy 50th Paul