Club exit North Midland Shield

Camps fell just short in their bid to reach the North Midlands Shield Final with a narrow defeat at Old Saltleians in difficult circumstances. Despite the loss of their two principal kickers and finding themselves 15 points and a man down half way through the first half, the visitors never stopped battling and clawed their way back to within 3 points at the end.

The game started in bizarre fashion with Camps winning a routine lineout ball on the halfway line but then the forwards drove the ball all the way down within feet of the Salts line before momentum took the maul down and the ball was lost forward. To compound this misfortune the ball came back to the Salts full back and one missed tackle later he was touching down in the corner for a 5-0 lead.

Camps came back strongly and two strong runs from winger Liam Lindsey nearly produced a score but when Salts cleared the danger they produced a rolling maul of their own which the visitors were only able to stop, close to the line, by pulling it down. With the referee playing an advantage, the ball was fed out to the centre and a break through the middle resulted in a try under the posts and a12 point lead for the home side.

With regular fly-half Barney Edwards missing with flu, Camps then lost his replacement Ian Briggs with a nasty facial injury caused by a stray boot which necessitated a trip to hospital.

Almost immediately, Jan Van der Walt was yellow carded for an offence at the breakdown and the resultant penalty from around the 10-metre mark sailed between the posts.

A quick response was needed and it came courtesy of George Wilkinson’s scuffed restart, which looked as if it would not travel 10 metres but just managed it and, with Salts standing off, the visitors recovered the ball and set up an attack in midfield. Progress was stopped by a penalty but coach "Halbey" took a quick one made good progress before feeding the supporting Mark Newton who loped over for a try that Ben Taylor converted.

The replacement kicker had another opportunity on the stroke of half time from a penalty but the referee deemed that too much time had been taken and blew for the break.

It took Camps a little over 10 minutes of the second half to score their second try.

A take by Newts from a line out in the opposition 22,a trademark drive and Harry Cunningham over for the try which Ben Taylor was unable to convert.

The home side now enjoyed a long period of possession and territory and with no kicking option to relieve the pressure Camps had to soak it up and stand firm. Eventually, when an attempted clearance kick went astray, the defence ran out of numbers and Salts went over in the corner to extend the lead to 8 points.

Despite living on scraps of ball, Camps still managed to fight their way into the opposition 22 for a final time and a similar line out take and drive saw Harry go over for his second try with minutes left.

There was to be no further score and the place in the final went to the home side.