Old Yardleians 2nds 60 - 34 Wednesbury
Another hot September day and an Old Yardleians' team with an average age below 25 Yards took to the pitch with 14 players and with no recognised hooker it looked a little bleak. Bleakness commenced with the visitors scoring their first try within the first 10 mins but the heads didn't go down and within minutes Yards were level, This was the story of the first half, an even blend of good phases of ball, strong forward play mixed with a lack of concentration letting Wednesbury's good set of backs through the gain line. The first half came to an end with Wednesbury 3 points up. Mark Banyard stepped into the circle of players to give his opinion of the first half, then came the inspirational speech, in his final game as 2nd team captain Sean Byrne made wholesale changes to the team which saw Dave Rimmer playing in his 4th position of the game so far. As the huddle broke Junior arrived ready to bolster the team to a full 15 players, the 2nd half commenced with another fantastic kick-off from fly half Sam. For the first 15 minutes the game was tight, then came the pivotal point of the game, the visitors then received a penalty on the halfway line and decided to kick for touch, the fly half's kick slid of the side of his boot and headed for the middle of the pitch straight for Guy. Alas Guy not being as quick as he once was couldn't get to the bounce the ball hit the ground and went straight into the Wednesbury fly half's hands and he was over for the try. This sparked the Yards who then over the next 20-25 minutes turned up the energy, fight and teamwork that saw them run in five un-answered tries. With Sam at fly half playing a man of the match performance the tries came from all positions - wingers (Daz and James scoring great tries), centres (Junior popping up with 2) forwards (Egg running 70 yards for his try and Greg scoring 2 - one of which was a try to remember). This was the most pleasing second half this Captain has seen from an Old Yards 2nd ever, the fire and fight that went into the second half was a joy to watch and to say that 10-11 players played in totally alien positions to them shows just what an achievement this was.