Pink Day Blues pull off a vital win
Pink Saturday, part of the whopper charity weekend at Monks Lane, saw the Newbury Blues host North Dorset, sitting a few points and one place above them in the bottom half the league table, and both uncomfortably close to the relegation zone. There was a lot at stake.
Well ahead of a game of rugby, Monks Lane was rocking with the activities of Pink Day, raising money for Newbury Cancer Care. Two auctions of fantastic contributions from amazing sponsors – one launched online the evening before, one live during lunch – plus Pink Ladies painting fingers to mark donations into buckets, raffles and several versions of game predictions had the money rolling in. Half-time saw another bunch of activity by the rugby youngsters and supporters, tackling and kicking for goal, which again pulled in another lump of sponsorship and other donations. It was all action and loadsamoney! And the Blues looked fabulous in their pink – very pink! – Pink Day kit (with its token bit of blue).
To the game. The Blues dominated possession in the first half of the first half with absolutely no result. They definitely had the edge but, with quite a lot of scruffy play, it all came to nothing. Close to the end of the first half, and having pushed into the other half for not very long, North Dorset ran over the try line – 5 points. A galvanised Blues delivered a converted try in reply and, having come to life, another not long after. The teams went in 14:5 to the Blues at half time.
The second half was a curious inversion, with a lot of play around the 22 and the Blues defending their try line in the first 20 minutes. Once again, for a quite a while, the score didn’t change. Then, Blues Prop Ben Hicks ran an astonishing break-away try across more than half the pitch, brilliantly converted (from a very tricky angle) by Captain and Fly Half Dan Thorne. Neither team could make any inroads after that until Dan Thorne was sent to the sin bin in the very last few minutes of the game, which probably gave enough space for North Dorset to claim another 5 try points.
Final score 21:10 to the Blues. Not a perfect result – bonus points for more tries would have helped – but good enough.
The Newbury Blues are away to Petersfield on 22nd March and at home (their last match in the league this year) on 5th April, hosting Chichester. Come on you Blues!
Photos by kind permission of Peter Branch and Newbury Rugby Football Club
