A Pleasant and Enjoyable Tea Party

The boys from Belper made the short journey to Boston ready to kick start the league campaign for the 2010/11 season. Belper arrived in good time and were able to take some time to have a look around the far too posh facilities of Boston's ground.

Once the cobwebs were dusted off Belper began their pre-match preparations of Jaffa bars and bananas in anticipation of this game. Boston had both the advantage of playing at home and a full complement of players who seemed eager to put a stop to Belper's season before it had even started.

Belper were fired up for this one knowing that due to the points structure for the league, that this was a 5 point game. Belper started brightly with Blount taking the kick off into the Boston pack. Emslie, Dyer and new boy Shea were quick to make their presence known and quickly made the necessary tackles to keep Boston pinned back in their half.

After good counter rucking from Matthews and Hayward the ball was recycled well to provide partially ex prop but now winger Carter to work his way over the line for a good score in the corner. Blount faced with a difficult kick into the wind took his two points gracefully. Belper felt they had the ascendancy, however this was soon to be found out as Boston certainly weren't about to roll over and let the visitors have it too easy.

Boston came straight back using their own lineout and powerful mauling game to put Belper on the back foot, This coupled with numerous unforced errors from Belper, who seemed to be trying too hard at times allowed Boston to sneak in with a breakaway try from their centre and a sniping run from their 9 and Boston took the lead, a penalty a piece took the half time score to 13-10 to Boston.

Belper took the half time to reflect on a half filled with frustration and errors, it was agreed that what we were doing was not going to score more points that them, so we had to simplify the play to ensure we retained the ball.

Belper responded resoundly to this with the forwards taking on the Boston pack and controlling the breakdowns excellent work from Holmes and Watson kept the ball alive a Naylor woke from his slumber to start delivering some quality ball to Jones at 10. This spurred on a number of attacking waves of which Boston could not respond to and new boy Shea took advantage and worked his little legs as hard as he could to score his first try for the club.

Belper had the bit between their teeth now, continued strong running from the centre combination of Bog and Gunter punished the Boston defence, at times it seemed as though Bog was desperate to be involved in everything and he even tried his hand or boot out at kicking, which I doubt he will do again as it resulted in the biggest slice known since Hayward won Belper's giant pizza eating competition 2007.

Anyway this slice although unintentional had stirred the Gray into action, he showed Boston his footballing skills with a silky half volley before gathering up and storming to the try line.

Belper were combining well now and Boston's heads seemed to drop, Belper went for the kill, Holmes was quick to take advantage of this and made one of his now trademark speed wobbles through the Boston defence to score under the posts.

Naylor tried to help Boston get back into the game with another of his boxkick attempts but luckily Matthews and his jelly legs managed to wibble his way forward twenty yards before being felled.

After a period of strong defence form Boston it was time for the Captain to join in on the scoring. Strong forward play from the Belper pack gave good field position and Dakin crashed through two defenders for an easy score (easy for him that is, but for anybody else, very very difficult, almost impossible in fact). Jones converted.

There was no coming back from this one, Belper continued their assault with a good individual piece of skill from Naylor, which left him free to score. York came on for the commendable Hayward ( whom the ref, after the game said that he was a wiley old prop that with 25 to 30 years experience of propping, knows all the naughty tricks of the front row – Does anyone know how old Woz is)

Belper were still not done yet, following an excellent scrum from the Belper pack came an awesome pick up from Dyer, that he should have left for his Captain resulting in a tempestuous break for Meakin to waltz over the line and add his 5 to the tally.

Emslie who had received a dead arm, spent 10 minutes getting treatment and although he had Parkinsons of the arm he still managed to hold onto the ball and run through 6 and a half defenders and 60 yards only to fall over once he realised he still had 20 to go, screaming for pies.

The game ended with a positive 42 - 13 win for Belper, who managed to score 32 unanswered points in the 2nd half against a Boston side who played hard and fair and who once they hit their stride will be a difficult team to beat.

Coach Boyd was very pleased about the result but was very unhappy that there were no jaffa cakes left (or pies).

All in all a big first win of the season for Belper earning both the win and the bonus point, Big thanks to the Belper Fan Club, who came down and offered their support, but the RaRa skirts were perhaps a mistake.