Under 12's v Market Bosworth on November 4th 2007

Although once again the parents of this motley crew of players were looking a bit fragile after a night out at the Beer and Skittle event on the previous evening. Tony Balance was still working on his Alvin Stardust impression and wanting someone to be his " CHOOGA CHOO ", Whilst poor Sarah Nicholls had recieved another wine related injury to her foo this time.

Now then this game had been set up as just one game because Market Bosworth had informed our coaches that they only just had enough for one team and one game, so Burton went with 13 players. I now know what Custers face must have looked like at the little Big Horn, when Pat saw that they had a squad of 20+ and wanted two games, we'd been ambushed from the start.

The games were to be played on a funny shaped pitch that was wider than it was in length

Game 1 - Burton 10 Market Bosworth 20

Burtons captain, Ed Wainman, " THE WHITE SAMOAIN " lost the toss and the first game started with Burton playing up hill, with no assistance from the cable cars.Bosworth were always looking to play the ball wide and within a few minutes they had breached the Burton defence to score the first try. Not long after a Burton fumble gave possesion over to Bosworth who capitalised to score their second, and at half time they were two trys to nil up.

A rousing half time speach, and after a few of the Burton players had woken up we commenced the second half. From the off Burton pushed forward and had a lot of possesion when Wainman broke through , breaking a few tackles to all on the side line he seemed to score by grounding the ball, however the ref saw it differently and disallowed the try,one of several dodgey decisions by the ref, the least said of him the better.Bosworth thought back and from using their secret tactic, the forward pass scored another try. Burton were not out of it and were hassling Bosworth when they had the ball not letting them settle Wainman put in a hard tackle and from this Minns recieved the ball and scored for Burton. there followed more Burton pressure but again from a silly error the ball was turned over and Bosworth ran from their line to score again. Many a team might have given up but the Burton boys don't know when to stop and again encamped themselves in the Bosworth half. Bosworth gave away a silly mistake and the ball was moved sweetly down their line , each Burton player drawing in his opposing number before passing and this resulted in Jordan Sturgess scoring Burtons second try and the last of the game.

Game 2 - Burton 15 Market Bosworth 5

Bosworth made several changes for the second game whilst Burton with only 13 really had limited choices, basically none. From the off Burton moved the ball out and only minutes into the game Eddie Nicholls broke through on the wing, what happened next we don't know because the ref wouldn't tell us why but Eddie was sent off and so Burton were down to a tierd12 against the fresh legged Bosworth 13.This spurred Burton on who pushed forward and Jack Rollings ran through some poor tackles to score Burtons first try. Bosworth didn't seem to be able to capitalise on the extra player for a long period of time until Burton conceded a penalty and Bosworth managed to score, end of the first half one try each.

From the start of the second half Bosworth kicked the ball to Wainman who did an electrifying run breaking several tackles to make a big dent in the Bosworth defence, he passed the ball to George Mills who still had some work to do but Bosworth were at sixes and sevens and Mills scored for Burton. The game then went through a phase of both teams trying to impose themselves on their opposite numbers with neither team getting the better of the other, when up popped our old freind Louis Sanders with the ball and he trundled over the line to make it 3 for Burton. As the final whistle blew Burton had won the second game 3 trys to one, but for the majority of the game playing 12 men against 13.

 I have to say that the Burton squad really pulled it together fot these two encounters and had to pull something extra out of the bag which they did, they played some excellent rugby and showed a real fighting , never say die spirit. So as a team well done to Tom Winter,Eric Gilliver, Charles Budd, Jordan Sturgess, Louis Sanders, Alex Nesbitt,Edward Wainman, Elliot Minns, Eddie Nicholls, George Mills, Jack Rollings, Sam Balance and Sam Crawford for an outstanding performance