Dukes Return To Winning Ways!

There is a saying in sport that sometimes you have to "win ugly" and that is exactly what the Dukes did against Guildford yesterday. After a tough game against a mixed 1s and 2s side at Mitchem last week ended in defeat, it was vitally important that the Dukes got back to winning ways against Guildford to stand a chance of winning the league.
Guildford are a great bunch of guys off the field, but on it they are very tough. This is proved by the FOUR yellow cards dished out by the ref in yesterdays encounter, not all deserved in this correspondents opinion!

The Dukes side was highly depleted yesterday which is what makes this victory even more impressive with 4 late drop outs the players that were there had to show up, and show up they did. Building a 14-0 half time score with tries from Dan Drummond and Nick Lewis converted by stand in scrum half Tom Rotherham, who it should be added had a fantastic game playing out of position!

Guildford hit back at the start of the second half with an unconverted try of their own. However full-back Ged Mc Hugh scored to extend the lead before Guildford were awarded a controversial penalty try, after a sustained period of pressure and in spite of some heroic defending by Cornish. Mc Hugh’s quick thinking then lead to one last try for Cornish after he ran in his own tap and go from a penalty, leaving the final score at 28 - 12. There remains only one thing to mention and that is the outstanding performance man of the match Timmy Fuller, the Irishman was all over the park and commanding in the back row, both in defence and attack.

Next up for the Dukes, the small matter of league leaders Old Paulines visit to the REMPF next Saturday.

Squad: Jack Davidson (Capt.), Kevin Murray, Mark Gibaud, Rob Cahn, David Morris, Timmy Fuller, Tom Rotherham, Dan Drummond, Sam Steer, Scott Kaye, Steve Tate, Mark Wyatt, Nick Lewis, Ged McHugh, Matt Clasper, Charlie Linard, Oli Chapman, Rich Parsons.