match report - Bingham 5 Derby Vets 25

We welcomed back Glenn Sutton for his first game after breaking his wrist in February, Ed Ranns & TJ for the game against Derby Vets.

An early penalty for Derby gave the lead to the visitors and a yellow card followed for Ed after a tackle without the ball from the restart. On 15 mins, Derby ran good phases of possession and ran in the corner and converted to make it 0-10. Bingham confidence began to grow holding own in the line out care of Ben McGill, doing well in scrums and having good phases of possession. A penalty miss from Mike Challans 35m out but then conceded a penalty which went over in off the post 0-13. the lead was then increased to 0-18 as Derby worked a move off the back of a scrum. Heads didn’t drop and after collecting a clearance, Glenn Sutton put in a deft chip to turn the defence and was able to recover possession, keep the move going and feed the backs to the opposite wing before being driven in to touch. HT 0-18

Bingham upped the ante in the 2nd half and competed more at breakdowns managing to turn the Vets defence with one such kick chased by Keith Lowthian successfully turning over the ball for Dan Bartram to go over. Conversion missed but Bingham back in it 5 -18. The backs were much more aggressive in defence and back row of Ed, Andy Birznieks and Anthony Thomas began to trouble the Derby defence and managed to stifle much of the Derby attacks bringing the ball back to the forwards from the 10. However, Derby guile, and excellent ball retention led to a 3rd try running back a clearance taking the lead to 5-25. The last 20 minutes were pretty even with Bingham making changes bringing on Gareth McGahan, Ian Taylor, Chris Spibey & Mark Brenton but no further scoring and prevented Derby getting the bonus point. A much better 2nd half moving forward again and realising we could match Derby.