Highly entertaining game of nine tries goes Ives way

With both clubs’ higher teams having a weekend off, there was an interesting mix of players on both sides which provided for an entertaining match. Moments of individual brilliance led to a glut of tries to entertain those who could drag themselves away from 6 Nations coverage.
The first quarter was a cut and thrust affair with both teams unable to take chances in the opposition 22. The Bulls were the more fortunate on one occasion when, pressing the Shelford defence, a loose pass was intercepted. The Shelford centre scampered almost the length of the field, but his support dropped the ball with the line beckoning to let off the visitors.
The lineout axis of Rob Olivier and Ash Palmer and the scrum were both working well for the Bulls to provide primary possession, but no way through the Shelford defence could be found.
With both teams wondering from where a score would come, Ives chose to kick their first penalty opportunity to take the lead through Joe Cox.
From the restart, a speculative fly hack by Olivier took a wicked bounce. The ball evaded the covering Shelford defence and dropped into the arms of the grateful Warwick Brittany who scored under the posts. Cox converted with his last action of the game as he took a knock.
Having been scoreless for 25 minutes, Ives now ran rampant. Taking a pass from Sam Smith at the kick off, Duncan Williams got closer to a gallop with his first touch on the ball and strode into the hosts’ half. He offloaded to Tom Shiels who, having discovered during the week that hand offs are allowed at senior level (shows how long it is since he last played), proceeded to practise the art three times and complete a fine 40 metre trek to the line. Jim Robinson took over the kicking duties and converted.
As the match was being played on Shelford’s 4G surface, the ball was demonstrating some extraordinary bounce. The kick off evaded all, but bounced into the arms of Bradley Robinson, who swallowed his surprise and marched downfield. Jordan Edwards was in support and cantered to the line unopposed.
In the blink of an eye, Ives led 24-0.
That the scoreline was slightly flattering was reinforced as Shelford reinforced their ranks in midfield and began to make inroads. Good defence up front by Palmer and Sam Vivers was echoed by Robinson Senior and Dave Sykes. Robinson was also pegging the opposition back with some decent touch finders, rolling back the years.
With Edwards taking a ten-minute breather following an indiscretion, the home side finally breached the Ives defence and scored in the corner.
The home centre demonstrated his skills with a fine burst to score a converted try to further close the gap.
Having been under the cosh for the third quarter of the game, two pieces of individual brilliance took the game away from Shelford. A long kick was fielded by Brittany in his own 22. Deciding to have a jaunt of his own, he switched on the after burners, weaving and jinking his way the full length of the pitch to score.
As was the pattern of the match, one score was swiftly followed by another. Rick Peters collected the ball on the Shelford 10-metre line. He pranced, cavorted and stepped his way through the home defence to score a fine individual try.
With the game beyond them, Shelford continued to press for consolation scores and were rewarded with two tries as the minutes ebbed away. The first came following a lineout close in, the second another dart by the Shelford centre.
Skipper Tom Riches was a happy man following the game. “We had to reshuffle after the delays for some due to the A14, unexpectedly played on the synthetic surface which is new to most of us and faced some quality opposition. We shrugged off all the obstacles and put together a fine performance across the team of which we can all be proud.”