Bridport Daggers

47

East Dorset

19

At the Brewery Ground on Saturday it was the spirit of the rugby community that was the winner as more than 100 spectators watched East Dorset play their first game since their player Jamie Davis tragically took his own life 2 weeks ago. Fittingly a minutes’ silence was observed before the kick off.

The Blues with a strong set of backs including the welcome return of Freddie Woolner were soon on the attack, Woolner breaking into the 22 and offloading well to Waters who was just held up enabling East Dorset to clear. Woolner was soon back with the ball but knocked on and the first scrum showed the problems to be faced by the Blues as their lightweight pack was under pressure enabling East Dorset to clear. Fortunately, they were unable to capitalise on their scrum superiority as following a turnover, the Blues rucked the ball back and Woolner broke into the 22 and offloaded to Oscar Tompkins to round the defence and score under the posts.

From the kick off the Blues missed a perfect scoring chance as Alex Perkin could not hold onto a pass with a clear run to the line. East Dorset made them pay as they drove into the Blues 22 and after a series of knock-ons their scrum superiority enabled them to score two converted tries in quick succession to take a 14-7 lead. From the kick off the Blues forced a penalty and from the resulting lineout Woolner kicked through and just beat the cover defence to touch down for an unconverted try.

With the half drawing to a close, and Blues substitutions giving them parity in the scrums, quick ball from a scrum in the East Dorset 22 allowed Mitch Waters to break clear for a converted try and a 19-14 half time lead.

The Blues kicked off long into the 22. East Dorset gained a line out turnover and cleared. The Blues knocked on and a loose ball from the scrum was kicked long behind the East Dorset defence by Woolner and his excellent chase was rewarded when he gathered the ball offloading for Tompkins to score in the corner, well converted by Waters. He repeated the feat when another long kick by Woolner, who was having a very influential match, was well chased and the ball went out to Dave Cutting to score in the corner. East Dorset were now tiring and with Blues starting to dominate the scrums and keeping their opponents in their own 22 Waters broke from a scrum fed Woolner who drove through the defence to score in the corner.

The Blues were caught napping from the kick off conceding a penalty, which was taken quickly for a score in the corner. The final 15 minutes was all
Blues pressure but they could only manage one converted try scored by Charlie Crane and came out 47-19 winners.

After the match Blues President Peter Brook thanked all those from East Dorset for their courage and strength in completing this fixture and confirmed that a very well supported raffle together with the Blues players’ match fees meant that the club would donate £350 to the Jamie Davis Memorial Fund. Ayo Fraser presented the East Dorset Captain with a Bridport Number 3 shirt signed by all the players to be passed onto Jamie’s family.