Cotham Park RFC The closest Rugby club to Clifton in Bristol

After last weeks stroll against a geriatric Aretians side, Park were under no illusions that BAC were going to capitulate as easily. They'd scored over 200 points in their last 4 matches seeing off Kingswood 3rds, Cainscross 2nds and Ashley Down 2nds.

As everyone at the club knows, this years second team isn't really a 2nd team. It's more like we've got a 1st 30 and just split that into 2 sets of 15. This weeks side had a good mixture of age and youth, with Shoppo, Simon Coles, Andy Day, Trevor, and Jimmy providing all the age that any side could require, and Tom Shopland, Rich, and Jack lowering the average age a bit. Due to a lack of front row players we had to borrow Chris from BAC to hook, and Shoppo had to abandon his plan of playing Fly-Half, and prop instead.

The game started at a high pace with Park playing up the slope and immediately pressuring the BAC line. Unfortunately 10 minutes of sustained pressure yielded no points. Then the tables were turned, a weighty BAC pack camped out in the Park 22 but handling errors and turnovers allowed the us to escape.

Both sides were evenly matched with Park edging the lineouts due to the collosal jumping of Tom Shopland, and Rob Cummings, and BAC pressuring us in the scrum - not through better technique, but mainly because of each of their front five appeared to have 2 bellies! The backs were also evenly matched. Both sides aiming to make use of their pacy wingers but with neither being able to break through the others defence.

As the game went on, it became obvious that tries were going to be hard to come by, both defences were solid, so Park decided to take a chance on with the boot. A penalty came our way in front of the posts with only a few minutes of the half left. Up stepped Jimmy Cook. The man with the kick of a mule and the precision of a surgeons scalpel. I hardly even need to write that it sailed between the posts and off into the horizon like a bird. 3-0.

Half time came and went giving both sides a much needed rest. The second half gave park the advantage of the slope and the plan was to use the golden boots of Jimmy and Andy Day to camp in the bottom corner on the BAC try line. The plan worked well as despite the Park scrum becoming ever more creaky and errors creaping into our game, we managed to play inside the BAC half of the pitch and limit them to breakaways. Sadly, with ten minutes left, disaster struck. A quickly taken penalty inside their own 22 saw BAC ship it quickly to one of their speedy wingers. Normally Jeff or Rich would have sorted this sort of thing out but they were out of position. The covering defence managed to force the winger to ship the ball onto a slower teammate and we stopped them inches short of our own line. However the ensuing scrum saw BAC set up a ruck on our try line and one of the fatties stumbled over from close range. 3-5.

With 10 minutes to go we just need to get a position for Jimmy to use his golden boot to give us a well earned massive 1 point victory. Play too-ed and fro-ed for minutes that seemed like years, possesion was lost and won, mauls were rolled, rucks were shoed, lineouts won, scrummages lost, passes held and kicks made, until finally, we got that vital penalty a mere 30 yards from the posts with wind. VICTORY..... Sadly no. The kick, a mere formality, was spooned, chance lost game over.

After 80 minutes of sweat, blood and toil by both sides, the only difference between the teams was that Jimmy's final kick. As a club we don't like to apportion blame, but I think it's fair to say that it's Jimmy's fault we lost this game ;)

Anyway the return fixture is after Christmas so we've got some time to get to training, and go up to their place and teach them a bit of a lesson. Well done to everyone who played (including Jimmy), we didn't lose because of a lack of effort, just a lack of skill and a bit of cohesion. Well done to the guys who played their first game for the club (sorry I can't remember your names, my memory is worse than my eyesight!). Hopefully normal winning service should be resumed next week against Kingswood 2nds away. Don't forget to let Moley(07787 170265) and Shoppo(07971608520) know your availability.