Burton Vets 17 Burntwood Vets 3 on 12th January 2008

Burton Vets entertained Burntwood Vets on the pitch at John Taylor School and obviously enjoyed the new location as they returned to winning ways with an excellent 17-3 victory.

Realising they were far more experienced than their younger opposition Burton played a tight game with captain Dave Brown insisting the ball would only be given to the backs once all other options had been explored.

This tactic worked well as Burton’s forwards dominated all set pieces and consumed huge amounts of ground with powerful surging bursts from Chris Sameways, Colin Wood, Darren Golder while the mercurial feet of Neil and Mel Gilbert danced amongst the opposition ranks creating mayhem with every step. All this power play was backed up by the continual harassment of Andy Betteridge and Rob Ridley who never let the Burntwood team in peace for a moment. One powerful forward burst saw Rich Tyers crash over from about two yards out despite having been conspicuous by his absence during the previous moves.

But this try did establish Burton’s lead and once in front Brown began to utilise the pace and trickery of his backline as first Tony Williams weaved his magic to complete a fine individual run down the blindside to ignore all support to score in the corner. Then to round off an excellent display by the Burton team Huw Davis and Ian Pullen combined in a brilliant scissors move that saw Davis round his man and race thirty metres to score under the posts. Declan Cathay’s conversion put the seal on Burton’s victory.