Leighton Buzzard 38 Buckingham 7

Buckinghams short journey to their Bedfordshire hosts resulted in a really bad day at the office. Travelling with only one replacement was to have a hugh effect on the outcome as the visitors suffered four second half injuries to Lawence Brown James Hulston Jak Cluness and Sam Cook plus Toby Smith being shown a red card just before half time meant that Buckingham were down to twelve men for most of the half and indee were forced to use physio Ben Wallis to shore up the numbers.
Kicking off down the steep slope in the first half Buckingham were stunned when the when the ball was gathered up by the Buzzard threequarters and fed out to the right wing who evaded some halfhearted tackles to score under the posts leaving an easy conversion for seven points and barely two minutes played.
Buckingham battled back with great resolve getting close with a penalty by Calum Gillie after seven minutes.The pressure on the Buzzards continued with a yellow card for stamping on the fifteenth minute mark and three minutes later along kick out of defence by the home side was taken by Sam Cook and his storming run took him through several tackles to score in the corner.Gillies excellent long range conversion bringing the scores level.
So it remained until shortly before half time when a touchline melee erupted and when order was restored a Buzzard player got a yellow card and regretfully Buckingham a red.This without doubt changed the course of the game as not only were Buckingham one short but not having a specialist prop replacement were forced to shuffle the scrum.Buzzard with a quick young side containing mostly ex academy players were quick to seize their advantage scoring three tries in the first ten minutes of the second half and as Buckinghams injuries mounted went further ahead though the visitors as always competed until the final whistle With no first team fixture this Saturday a well earned rest and a chance to regroup before the visit of Maidenhead on Saturday week.
Eric Curtis