BLOXWICH 1ST XV 15
BURTON A 10
BURTON A again found themselves facing a junior club first team when they travelled to play Bloxwich — and found the task too great for them as they were beaten 15-10.
A drop goal after just three minutes saw Bloxwich take an early 3-0 lead and they soon extended this after some poor Crofters defence let their flanker race through several would-be tacklers to score a converted try and give his team a 10-0 lead.
Strangely, the visitors seemed unwilling to get stuck into big tackles as they came under pressure from their Midlands Four West (North) hosts.
Jack Bartram restored some of Burton’s battered pride as he successfully landed a penalty two minutes before the break and got the scoreboard ticking over.
So trailing 10-3 and after some harsh words from coach Chris Ariss during the break Burton restarted the game only to be hit by an injury to scrum-half Adam Blockley (knee).
With Gavin Worth moving to scrumhalf, Danny Jansic took to the field as Burton tried to stop Bloxwich’s growing domination.
A rare good Burton scrum saw the ball spun along the line to Felix Phillips, who raced round and passed five defenders before popping the ball to Jansic, who crashed over the line to score.
Bartram added the extra points as the Crofters drew level at 10-10.
But then fly-half Bartram (broken nose) had to leave the field to be replaced by Pete Baum, returning after injury, as the visitors reorganised their ranks.
Bloxwich capitalised on this and their winger eventually managed to ground the ball for an unconverted try.
Burton struggled to contain the more physical Bloxwich forwards as loose defence and poor attitude combined to see them defeated 15-10 in a game that with more application they could well have won.
BURTON B 56
STAFFORD 7
BURTON B romped to a 56-7 victory over Stafford in a friendly match — with two hat-tricks among the tries.
Several older heads among the young B outfit paid dividends as the Crofters overran their visitors and benefited from plenty of good possession.
Simon Paupe opened the scoring after five minutes, Aiden Varney converting, before Lee Gilleland grabbed the first of his treble after bursting onto a short pass from Varney.
Varney himself added a third after dummying his way through the defence and Burton led 17-0.
But Stafford fought back and got a converted try after some good forward work allowed their winger to go over under the posts.
The Crofters his back as Gilleland added his second try.
Then just before the break, man-of-the-match Matt Kirkpatrick took the final pass from a move involving Adam Clayton, Paupe, Gilleland and Varney to race 30 metres and score near the posts.
Varney added the extra points for a 29-7 lead at the break.
Burton continued to dominate in the second half, with John Collett and Ian Baker taking the ball at will in the lineouts, while Stu Hutton, Sean Shuttleworth and Owen Shand had control over the opposition’s front row.
All this ball soon gave Kirkpatrick the chance to score two further tries to get his hat-trick before full-back Alec Jardine joined the line to waltz past two defenders and score in the corner.
Gilleland again showed his natural flair as he dummied past two defenders before racing 30m for his third try.
However, it was a forward who had the last say. Burton set up a rolling maul which drove on before Rich Paupe broke away and fed Collett, who stormed over the line for a try that Varney converted to take Burton’s final score to a welldeserved 56-7.
