Bulls go down to runaway league leaders

An unusually passive first half display by St Ives gave league leaders Wellingborough too much of a lead to recover.
The visitors transition play was sharp, pouncing on early Ives errors. A dropped ball on half way was scooped up and with good offloading to support players, Wellingborough opened the scoring.
A similar passage of play saw them add a quick second after a quickly taken penalty.
Ives started to work their way back into the game, with Mitch Newman kicking a penalty.
Then, a series of penalty concessions granted Wellingborough territory. From a lineout close to the Ives line, a well worked drive saw them go over for third try within the first quarter.
The game became more even for twenty minutes, neither side able to pierce their opponents’ line.
As the half was closing the Bulls again fell foul of the whistle, Wellingborough taking advantage to score their bonus point try. With three conversions, the half closed 0-26.
The home players marked their own report card during the break and came out a different side in the second half.
A superb line by Paul Ashbridge saw him break the defensive line. He bounced off the last two defenders to score a fine try, converted by Mitch Newman.
Despite still being three scores ahead, Wellingborough were clearly rattled as Ives began to run hard and with purpose. The usual suspects up front - Duncan Williams, Michael Sykes and Daryn Griffiths, who had a fine all round game - were making fine gainline breaks.
With confidence building a solid scrum in their own half led to a great score. Sykes and Joe Cox combined to release John Paxton and Connor O’Neill down the blind side. Excellent support play took the Bulls close to the line and a score could only prevented with penalty concessions. From one such, Griffiths pounced to score, again converted by Newman.
As it entered the last quarter, the game was now evenly contested. Both sides had further chances.
Finally, as Ives had a couple of men on the floor with knocks, Wellingborough took advantage of the extra numbers and rounded the defence to score.
Ives continued to wrest back the initiative, but turnover possession once more granted the visitors the chance to score a sixth try as time elapsed.
Head Coach Paul Humphreys shared his thoughts: “A game of two halves, we did not do ourselves any favours in the first half, we gave Wellingborough a little too much room to play. The second half pleased me. The lads rolled up their sleeves and started to play. We had a mixture of good carries from our forwards, Duncan Williams rolled back the years with some barn storming runs and the good work by the forwards allowed the backs to get ball on the front foot. Our centres Paxton and Ashbridge then came into the game more and for large parts there was only one team in it. It’s one of those games where the score does not reflect the game. Lots of positives we will take into training and next week’s game. Difficult to pick a MOM but Daryn probably edged it over a number of strong contenders.”