Burton Bees last gasp victory

Trailing 24-8 with twenty minutes to go, the experience of captain for the day Ian Baker, the evergreen Jono Edwards and the returning Will Forrester gradually over hauled a youthful Burntwood outfit.
There were powerful performances throughout with scrum half Jack Dixon pulling the strings and Warren Lewis with Simon Spence organising the back line. It was the pack that laid the foundation for the win with Jim Wood prominent in the loose and Andy Betteridge displaying all the dark arts in the midst of ruck and maul.
Burntwood started brightly and following concerted pressure opened the scoring with a well worked try after six minutes.
Burton responded and following a series of scrums close to the Burntwood line the dominant Burton pack scored a pushover try as Edwards calmly controlled the ball at the base and elegantly flopped over the line.
The game then settled into a competition between Burton's irrepressible pack and the dangerous Burntwood backs and following an outside break by the Burntwood centre a converted try meant that they led 12-5 until a penalty in front of the posts on the stroke of half time saw Lewis make the score 12-8.
Following a number of changes during the break, Burton took time to settle and through expansive running by the Burntwood backs they quickly increased the lead to 24-8.
This flurry of scoreboard activity was only the prelude to an amazing transformation from the entire Burton team. Following surging runs by Edwards, Forrester and the replacement Tom Sherratt, Burton began to believe that the improbable was possible.
Reverting to "old school" rucking and mauling they began to build the pressure on the visitors. First, following a fine flowing move that saw both backs and forwards involved, Dave Wallis scored in the corner. Then Jack Dixon muscled his way over following fine work by John Collett and Ian Gibson to leave the score 24-18 with three minutes left.
As the clock ticked down the look of concern on the visiting supporters and players turned into anguish and later despair as the youthful fly half kicked directly into touch meaning that Burton had one last chance to grab the spoils.
Repeatedly showing superb ball retention and technique they drove towards the Burntwood try line and after both Edwards and Forrester were held up Jack Dixon was able to burst through the tattered remnants of the Burntwood defence to score, thus making the score 23-24 with the conversion to follow.
Warren Lewis then stepped back and making Jonny Wilkinson look like a rabbit in the headlights, calmly slotted the ball through the middle of the uprights.
Both teams should take great credit for this superb example of Rugby in which contrasting styles of play were seen. The excitement was summed up by Captain Baker with the immortal words "Well, who'd have thought it!"
The game proved that Burton Bees and Vets can work well together and that the rest of the season promises even more action and drama.