With team selection this week-end being hugely influenced by unavailability for just about the first time this season the club had to put out emergency calls to some non-regulars. This saw Josh Edwards on the wing for the 1’s and Tim Donell on the subs bench.
The games between the two clubs over the last few years have generally been high scoring affairs between two sides who know how to attack. By the time of kick off the rain had gone away but there was still a strong cross wind from the west that was going to make line-out throw-ins and kicking a bit of a problem.
We were first on the score sheet with an unconverted try from Mike Parry on fifteen minutes, but this was cancelled out a few minutes later by a converted Sandown & Shanklin try to give them a 5 – 7 lead. At this point it was quite an even contest and that was how it looked as half time approached but Sandown & Shanklin then had a purple patch in the five minutes leading up to the break. With two converted and one unconverted tries they pushed the score out 5 – 26 and they achieved the four try bonus point.
We then had a long period of sustained pressure which resulted in an unconverted try from Peter Scott followed by another from Sam Broderick which was superbly converted by Mark Hammond and at 17 – 26 the game was back on again. However, Sandown & Shanklin had the final say with two more converted tries in the last five minutes of the game to secure a 17 – 40 win. The five minutes before the break and full-time cost Bridge dearly as S & S ran in five tries in those periods to give them the win.
Everybody agreed after the match that it had been an even game and the score line did not really reflect the closeness of the match
With other results in the league on Saturday not helping us, we drop a place to fifth just behind Millbrook, but their last two games are very tough with an away trip to unbeaten league leaders Basingstoke and a home fixture with third place Bognor. So, it’s still all to play for in the league.
With a week off next week we return to action away to Portsmouth 2’s on the 23rd March