'Burn blitz hands Hoppers a headache

A beautiful day at Lightfoot road and conditions underfoot suited fast runners with good sidesteps. Hoppers have a mighty squad, a whole team of which took to the roads to face Wilmslow today, leaving behind a spirited side facing a Blackburn team in fine form.

Two head injuries from last week and a school games saw Tom F and Johnny H off the squad list, though credit to both for turning up and giving great support. Our playing staff was back up to full numbers after last weeks dip, and we welcomed Arthur for his second game, while Lewis and Harry had their first outing. Harry (old) R was back after a few weeks in the chlorine to give is a strong and experienced 12 and bench. Brady got the nod ahead of him to start with, especially after last weeks debut try, his commitment to training and his wonderful dour and deadly attitude. When his body grows into that attitude he will be some player!

Game on and Burn faced an uphill gradient and bright sunshine, but we had the kick off and put Hoppers under pressure from the off, with early turn overs eventually being punished by the centre pairing of Jacob and Theo. Elected to receive the restart, which suited us fine as the ball could have gone anywhere in the sunshine, but we lost the pill and they punished us with a scintillating scamper down our left wing. We elected to kick to them again and once again piled on the pressure, forcing a fumble and touching down again, Deja Vu all over again as we had our restart returned, this time down the other wing to square the game at quarter time.

Thing then got interesting. All 3 newbies were brought on, 2 for first starts, while Harry slipped back into full back. This could have gone badly wrong, but the newbies stuck to their tasks of keeping possession and Harry cut some running lines from deep that made Hoppers flappers. By the end of the second quarter we were 3 tries to 2 to the good but we had woken up and were now in full beast mode.

The second half saw some amazing play, phenomenal tackles, terrific support play and a level of intensity and passion that would have done our 1st XV proud, (trust me, I get to watch them each Saturday!) Both Theo and Jacob completed their hat tricks, James T grabbed a great little step and go, and old Harry tore up the pitch again to break their line and their resolve. As gaps started to appear, Arthur and Lewis both had great runs, and when tackled presented well, got to feet and stole ball. New Harry made a nuisance of himself, kept up with play and dragged their defenders around, relishing in the festival of rugby sunshine now being unloaded on the men in green. At the final whistle, Burn had run in 7 unanswered tries, with Hopper only real entry into our half being brilliantly snuffed out, ball knicked and run out by Brady. Ted and Brady on the wings got over their initial shyness, and every subsequent effort to sneak down that avenue was repulsed by a combination of the lads and Old Harry at full back. Tom P was a turnover king, Chris solid in the middle of the park with him, while Michael P caused the opposition nightmares with his crashes into contact and his ripping and wrestling. Sam, hooker extraordinaire, had a bit of trouble getting his head into place, but dropped to centre to cover the omnipresent Theo, and helped keep our line intact brilliantly.

Happy Happy Happy day - off to the Spice lounge next for some team bonding and some planning for even bigger and better things!