Gainsborough Rugby Union Football Club 12 Presidents XV 12
Gainsborough Rugby Club played their final game of the season last Sunday 7th May against the Gainsborough Select Presidents XV and saved one of their best performances of the season for this final game.
Harry Sampson had put together a very good team of ex Gainsborough players along with players from Lincoln and North Kesteven to compete against the current All Blacks and Andre Russell captaining the side for the final time before retiring from the post assembled a side to match their invited guests.
There was a good crowd to watch the match played at Castle Hills School and both sides showed their intentions early in the game, the Presidents XV having the better of the attacking options but Gainsborough were up for every tackle and kept the visitors at bay in the early exchanges. Just as the home side were settling in and starting to threaten the Presidents the visitors broke and scored under the post an easily converted try 7 - 0 to the Presidents.
Despite the score the game was very evenly balanced, good tackling by both sides keeping scoring opportunities down to a minimum, Presidents dominated the territory and the All Blacks attacking through breakaways.
Just before half time the Presidents increased their lead with another try scored in the corner to give them a 12 - 0 advantage.
It would have been easy for the All Blacks to accept that this was another defeat after the half time interval but the side showed tremendous character to fight back against their visitors.
The game continued to be a tight affair similar in pattern to the first half but with the All Blacks dominating as opposed to their invited guest's. Persistence throughout the 40 minutes put the Presidents on the back foot and following a lot of good work by the All Blacks forwards the home side fought themselves back into the game.
Gainsborough matched the visitors first half scoring pattern scoring two try's and converting one of them to make the final score 12 - 12. A fitting score line to a very good game.
It was good to see a crowd on the touchline for this final game that watched a competitive game and cheered every attack despite the wet weather.
It is now traditional in this game for players to play for the Dave Myles trophy for the Man of the match award, Match ball sponsor Rick Munby made this presentation to Phil Jepsum who had an outstanding game for Gainsborough.
After the match the Gainsborough Club ended its season with a reception and presentations of awards at Liberty's all players and guests enjoying after match camaraderie. Click Here to view man of the match.
