Biggleswade 20 St Neots Heathens 25

Saturday 7th September saw St Neots RFC’s Heathens side travel to nearby Biggleswade for a spirited friendly match.

Ideal conditions allowed both teams to establish flowing rugby through the early exchanges of play. However, it was to be the away side who drew first blood when the Heathens pack orchestrated multiple phases to retain the ball and eventually broke the line via a surging run from inside centre Jake Bailey to score just left of the uprights.

After a bright start taking control of territory, the Heathens added a further score to stake a claim for dominance but there was an air of ill discipline leaking out of the visitors. A well placed kick to restart the match gave Biggleswade some momentum after some poor handling of the kick, resulted in an attacking scrum close to the Heathens 22 metre line.

Biggleswade continued to pressure the Heathens with some relentless efforts and added two scores of their own after exploiting the blindside of play.

The two sides exchanged further scores and the Heathens demonstrated their control with well constructed attack plays from the pack and key tackling from Aedan Pearsall and Lewis Rook. Despite a slower tempo, the Heathens identified gaps in the defence courtesy of Eddie “Swim shorts” Spall’s passing out to new signing Codie who then broke the line to link up with winger Dave Clarke to score; only to be tackled centimetres away from the whitewash.

The Heathens later bagged themselves a final try even with some controversial replacements exchanged, the team continued to exploit gaps from around the breakdown to create space out wide. The line out proved to be a key platform in which to attack from all afternoon with one of the Millers securing every dart that was accurately thrown in.

Heathens Captain for the match, Nick Ashford commented on the victory “The boys obviously absorbed my talent and leadership style to go out and perform, it was a good blend of experience and youth”