National League 3 London & SE CS Rugby 1863 42 Bury St Edmunds 27 The first half began with Bury playing into the strong headwind and showing little sign of a number of personnel changes.
The players kept the ball well, retaining possession for almost four minutes before the inevitable penalty was conceded by CS. Sam Bixby made it 3–0 Bury.
The strong wind was always going to make line-outs a little bit of lottery and when Bury lost one of their own throws, over eagerness to recover possession at a resulting ruck, enabled Scott Haddon the chance to restore parity with a penalty.
Two minutes later and another wayward line-out allowed CS to create some space out wide, left wing Jon Webber cut a great angle back off his wing and burst through a couple of ineffective tackles to score to make it 8-3 to the home side.
It did not take long for Bury to get back on terms. A penalty was kicked to within 15 metres of the line and after a series of drives from the resulting line-out, a battered and bloodied Beau Gibson powered his way over. 8 points all.
Haddon’s decision to move out into the centres then started to cause Bury some real problems, although Ben Scully was perhaps a little unfortunate to be yellow carded for what referee Graham Steeden deemed a high tackle.
The 14 men of Bury looked like holding on till the break but a freak clearance kick caught the wind and flew back over their heads resulting in a five-metre scrum to CS.
As the scrum began to wheel, No 9 McArthur darted in by the sticks, to send CS into the break 15–8 up.
The second half could not have started in a worse fashion. Rush’s kick-off sailed long over the dead ball line forcing a scrum back on half way. The CS attack from the scrum was turned over on the Bury 22 but Rush saw his clearance kick charged down by flank forward O’Halloran and he gleefully scored by the posts.
Haddon’s easy extras made it 22-8, before he added a penalty to further stretch the lead.
In four minutes, Bury had slipped from being level to trailing by 17 and they were never to fully recover.
Skipper Matt Eddison led from the front once again, his fine work in stealing the ball at a CS attacking maul allowed Dodds and Bixby to take the ball on before Tanimo Samoa broke through for a deserved score.
Bixby’s extras brought the score back to 28–15. But CS were flying as Haddon moved back to fly-half and his fine inside pass to Radley sent the substitute in on a clear run to the line and with the conversion added it now looked ominous for Bury.
Bury refused to give up without some sort of a fight and fine work by Sean Davies created the space for Samoa to score his second try. 34-22 CS.
Haddon added a penalty from another Bury indiscretion and then Young was shown a yellow. It just wasn’t going to be Bury’s day, typified by CS’s final try. Their line-out malfunctioned, finding Bury’s Ben Radmall all alone on the 15-metre line. Unfortunately he fumbled the pick up, the ball bouncing gratefully into the arms of Haddon, who ran in unopposed.
Bury restored some pride with the final play of the match, keeping the ball alive until eventually the space was created for Mike Bellamy, who scored in the corner to earn a bonus point.
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