Walsall travelled to Bournville with a depleted team. With injuries, illness and other commitments Walsall were 11 players short.
But in the true spirit of The Bandits they never gave up.

The day was dry and the pitch was one of the best we have played on. Great for running rugby. Bourneville and Walsall played a good game, with both teams showing excellent support play. The game was evenly matched, Bournville were slightly better organised defensively. Bandit spirit was in full effect, we had our hooker playing at inside centre, flanker playing outside centre, flanker back from a long absence on the wing. The team was a shear mix bag of dedicated players willing to play in any position for their team.

Walsall had great possession to push the ball deep into the Bourn half, only to have it stolen at the decisive moment. Bourn then pushed their attack beep into Walsall's half, resulting in a good backs move through the centres and use an overlap to score the first try of the game.
7-0.
There were some really good pieces of play from our backline linked with our forwards, who drove the ball forward with good platforms of play only to fall short at the business end. Bourn started push stronger through their backline, Walsall's defence held strong, notable defensive tackles were made by Tom Harris and Jakub Tomera to name a few. Walsall pushed really hard to even the scores up and gave a good account of themselves to be fair. Bourn had to work hard to stop the attacks, finally though patience by the home team saw them steal ball from Walsall during a ruck and link up the centres and wing man went in to score another try.
14-0

Walsall seemed to rally really well, making good use of the ball pushing up field through phases of good play. Aggression was on full display taking each ball at full speed. Dividends paid off with a well worked move down the left hand side of a ruck with Joel Pepper passing to Max Mason at full speed to break 4 tackles and score Walsall's well deserved try.
14-5

Half Time

Second half got under way, Walsall a little slow to start and were punished after a lapse in concentration that cost them an early try.
19-5
Walsall stifled Bourn's play area on one attack causing the home side to drop the ball, this meant Joe Birch could fly hack the ball down field and chase hard. He beat two defenders to the ball and gathered to score Walsall's second try of the match.
19-10
At times Walsall lacked direction, communication and aggression. We simply need to work on keeping momentum at all times and capitalising on the ball time we are given in a game. Walsall have developed well but the team can not afford to stand still as eventually all teams draw equal to the leaders.

Bournville worked the hardest in the second half, helping them to secure three more tries during the game. Tries came through good support play with the ball carrier never being isolated.
36-10
After that Walsall played much better after conceding three more scores? The rest of the second half The Bandits worked harder defending and attacking every time with the ball in hand. Support players were more readily available to help.

Final score 36-10

Thanks for the game today Bournville.

Lets not take away the fact Walsall had 11 players missing today, so on the whole it was a good team effort.

Final note, good luck to all players at the Tigers DPP U15's assessments on Monday night. And Tom Hale on Wednesday at the Staffordshire U15's assessment training.

See you all next Sunday, Stafford at home .

Rob & James

Walsall RFC

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