Disappointing 29-0 defeat at Biggleswade

Bourne's shaky start to life in Midlands 3 East – South continued as they suffered their second defeat of the season on the road to Biggleswade. With a number of players missing Bourne were forced to reshuffle the side but once again felt that even with so many changes they were fielding a strong side.

Nothing separated the sides in the opening minutes but the home side enjoyed greater possession and territory early on. Bourne seemed to have their measure, though, and repelled a number of attacks, defending well and turning over a reasonable amount of ball.

An early opportunity for Biggleswade to take the lead went begging with a relatively easy shot at goal being pushed wide. A short while later, though, Bourne were punished when scrumhalf Sam Evison (sponsored by Moon & Evison Ltd) was yellow carded under strange circumstances - clearing his line he was deemed to have kicked the ball away as the referee was blowing his whistle for a Biggleswade penalty. Deeming Evison's kick to be unsporting the referee was quick to take action.

Despite having the upper hand for ten minutes the hosts could not take advantage until being awarded another penalty which was duly converted and the deadlock was broken. Digging deep to see out the sin-bin period Bourne kept the gap to just three points and considered themselves to have weathered the storm.

Ironically, though, within just a minute of Evison returning, the visitors switched off altogether as the Biggleswade flyhalf received the ball just ten metres out and despite a number of the Bourne defenders being in position to halt him he darted untroubled to the try line and touched down. With the conversion added Bourne were now ten points behind.

As the first half drew to a close Biggleswade extended their lead as they ran a well-timed move off a line-out - shipping the ball wide through their backs a number of decoy runners caused confusion amongst their opposing men and the Biggleswade winger dotted down in the corner with relative ease.

Despite being 15 - 0 the message from coach Dave Maudsley (sponsored by DT Accountancy) and stand-in skipper Chris Greenwood was that Bourne were still well in the game and a more concerted effort in the second half could pay dividends.

But from the restart Bourne looked like they had given up the game as the ball was allowed to bounce from the Biggleswade restart and the home side gathered possession once again. As they had been for much of the game, Bourne were immediately under pressure in their own half with the prospect of fighting their way into their opponent's half looking less and less likely with every mistake.

Biggleswade soon made the pressure tell and once again their backs ran a strike move off a line-out to perfection. Rather than going wide this time though, they split the Bourne defence right down the middle and cruised in with ease.

Despite sensing their fate was sealed Bourne didn't give up and a number of players drove the side forward. Sion Williams (sponsored by M.S Decor) was Bourne's Man of the Match and his backrow colleague Keir Moore (sponsored by Electroflow Ltd), normally a prop, also had a good game. Scrumhalf Evison worked tirelessly under difficult circumstances and wing Rob Bentley contributed well.

In what was ultimately a scrappy game Bourne came to life in the last quarter as they threw everything they had into the game but it wasn't to be, and whilst throwing the ball around Bourne eventually lost control gifting possession back to the on-coming Biggleswade defence who pounced on their opportunity and immediately made inroads into the Bourne side quickly scrambling into defensive mode. Once again Bourne came up short and simply couldn't get enough players in the right places and the hosts crossed for a final try.

Coach Dave Maudsley expressed his disappointment after the game, "We knew that would be tough but if we're honest with ourselves we should have got more out of the game. To have leaked four tries and not got on the board ourselves is massively disappointing." At home to Birstall next week Maudsley was quick to play down selection concerns. "Missing players isn't an excuse as we have a bigger and stronger squad than we have previously. Our best twenty-five to thirty players are a similar standard but that means nothing if we underperform on a Saturday."

Assistant coach Ian Knight suggested Bourne's best approach was to look forward and not worry too much about blips in the season: "We're going to have more tough days than we have in the last two years and we can't get hung up on them. We need to take one game at a time, always looking to improve and learn from our mistakes. To be perfectly honest though, if we have days like today where things don't go anywhere near to plan, we should probably put them behind us as quickly as possible! We don't have to go back far to remember previous games where we've performed better and those games have to be our benchmark."

Maudsley added: "We set out to play as well as we can in every game in the belief that our best will match the other sides in this league but we know the reality is that some games won't go our way. There's a long way to go in the season though and all the games we're targeting as wins are yet to come!"