BOURNVILLE GET SEASON OFF TO A FLYER

Bournville Rugby kicked of their season with a home fixture against Bedworth RFC.  Two players were making their debuts with Robin Eatough in the centre and Adrian Maynard at openside flanker, in for the injured Adam Cristol.

Bournville got off to a slow start and immediately found themselves under pressure from an enthusiastic Bedworth team. With Bournville giving away a number of penalties in the first 10 minutes Bedworth were able to take a 6-0 lead. This seemed to be a wakeup call for Bournville as the forwards started to put together some controlled phase play. After some driving runs into the heart of the Bedworth defence the ball was spun wide for debutant Robin Eatough to glide over for his first Bournville try, easily converted by Alex Warner.

Bournville were starting to dominate up front giving the backs quick ball on the front foot. Tries from Dan Barratt (2) and another from Robin Eatough gave Bournville a deserved lead before the half hour mark. Unfortunately Bournville’s discipline let them down with Adrian Maynard getting a yellow card for the team’s persistent infringements.

At the start of the second half  Bournville began strongly with Adrian Maynard atoning for his earlier sin binning by bursting through the oppositions defence from half way before using his pace to score a powerful try in the corner, converted by Alex Warner. Shortly after this Robin Eatough skipped through the Bedworth defence to complete his hat trick, capping an excellent debut.  Bedworth were trying to get themselves back in the game and their dogged defence and powerful runners saw them score a well worked try with 20 minutes to go. 

In the final quarter Bournville’s disciplinary problems seemed to resurface with Matt Dickerson and Rod Petty receiving yellow cards for a couple of technical offences. This did little to stem Bournville’s tries as Dan Barratt crossed in the corner to complete his hat trick and Adam Coniff took an interception to score under the posts, converted by Alex Warner. 

After the game Al Dicko commented, “The lads played well and it was great to see them putting patterned phase play together. It will be important to build on this over the coming weeks, but it was a good start to the season.”

Next week Bournville travel to Camp Hill, where they will be looking to improve on last season’s performance at ‘The Shrine’ and continue to build on their winning start.

Bournville line-up: 1. Paul Coles, 2. Dean Bick, 3. Ian Coles, 4. Dai Hallmen, 5. Rob Griffin, 6. Matt Dickerson, 7. Adrian Maynard, 8. Nick Southern, 9. Rod Petty, 10. Alex Warner, 11. Dan Barratt, 12. Paul Cox, 13. Robin Eatough, 14. Adam Coniff, 15. Alex Ward, 16. Phil Brown, 17. Hesy Fakatou, 18. Chris Humphrey STAND OUT PLAYERS: Robin Eatough & Adrian Maynard

Match pics courtesy of Lee Sullivan - click here.

Match report by Matt Dicko.