East Retford 1^st XV 19pts v All Spartans Old Boys 17pts

Retford’s 1^st XV had pulled the new boys of All Spartan O.B’s away from home in this all important cup game which offered the only realistic chance of silverware for the 1^st team. Retford knew this was going to be a difficult game when first drawn but with the weather more suited for the arctic, this did not help.

Retford started the game at full throttle and testing the home defence to its limits with driving runs up to the top corner of the sloped pitch and the early pressure was telling as Spartans were using any tactic possible to halt the charging attack. Eventually Retford conceded a penalty and Spartans cleared their line with a good boot from their full back. Retford continued to attack and with a scrum, they managed to retain the possession from a far heavier set of forwards, holding the drives at most of the scrums as well as a few fists coming through from Spartans second row to the front row, luckily they mainly connected with Martin Galloway and to be fair they made a slight improvement as well as retaining what teeth he has left. The ball was spun out to the backs for the first real potent attack and it arrived at Stu Parkin who managed to duck under a clothes line type of tackle to score the first try of the game to put Retford 5 – 0 up with the conversion just floating wide with the icy winds helping it miss. This seemed to kick the Spartan team into life as well as their 20 odd supporters. Spartans took the game to Retford with some excellent kicking and attacking play, passing the ball out to the big winger who made plenty of yards through miss tackles as well as powerful running and this helped along with penalties in Spartan’s favour. Spartan’s scored under the posts for an easy conversion making the score 7 – 5 in favour of the home team, and the ever increasing supporters from Spartans where enjoying themselves. From the restart Retford looked to dominate again starting with the forwards who were tiring out there forwards, with the help of Keith “the enforcer” Dalby, this was happening with Mr Dalby bidding to be on the undercard of the Ricky Hatton fight, by throwing a couple of right hooks to a Spartan player after sustaining a possible broken nose, for his effort, he received a 10 minute rest. With some good rucking and mauling happening and coming together Retford crossed the line once again through Chris Maule, this time converted to make it 12 – 7 at half time.

The second half started with Retford going against the wind and hill but back up to the full compliment of 15 things didn’t start how Retford had planned by conceding an early penalty making the score 12 – 10, but they kept the pressure up and Retford conceded a convert try to take Spartan’s into a 17 – 12 lead and they looked like they were not going to give up the lead easily. Retford seemed to wake from the slumber and find another gear to start putting relentless pressure on the Spartans line but they held firm even conceding 4 penalties, but with the Spartans forwards tiring and Retford having an upper hand in this department having captain Iain Balmer coming on in the second row to solidify the scrum. With a number eight move called, Gary Woodcock broke off the back and tied up the scrum half and fly half just a meter off the line, he managed to recycle the ball for Keith “the enforcer” Dalby to score next to the post and this to be converted making the score 19 – 17 to Retford. With 20 minutes to go and the Spartans tiring, it was becoming end to end stuff with everybody putting their bodies on the line to try and score and also prevent from the opposition from scoring. Spartans were running out of ideas and all they had was the hefty boot of their full back who kept kicking it deep in to Retford’s half only for the counter attack to be returned with interest each time. The final whistle blew with a loud cheer from the Retford team.

On his return to the 1^st team Man of the match for the forwards was awarded to Liam Walter. He was at every break down and put in some good tackles as well as taking good high balls. Man of the Match for the backs went to S.Parkin for some excellent defensive and attacking work.  A big thank you must go to the handful of supporters who travelled to this important game.