Match Report: March Bears v Peterborough 2nds on Saturday, September 16 at Elm Road, March.

(Eastern Counties Division One West. Final Score 61 v 3).

After a very good pre-season, March opened its league fixtures with what turned into a nine try fest against Peterborough 2nds

It also was a great afternoon for kicker Sam Howatt who converted eight of them, some from acute angles .

Sam Howatt started the afternoon in seven minutes with a very good try when he outpaced the opposition and went under the posts

On 15 minutes Ben Howells crashed  over from a five-metre penalty .

Over the next 10 minutes, Peterborough lost both of their props and this necessitated uncontested scrums.

Scott Conway and Stacey Mould decided to volunteer to appear for Peterborough as they had lost another player to injury and had no furthers substitutes but also scrums could now be contested again .

But this did not deter March from playing their expansive style of rugby and in 35 minutes Will Paul went over the line after several movements by the forwards

One minute later Ciaran Brown finished off a great back movement and Howatt hit a superb conversion from the by line

March were still not finished before half time and just on the whistle Harvey Davies finished off a repeated handling move to go in for yet another try under the posts

The teams turned round with March leading 35 to Nil

Peterborough at last got themselves on the scoreboard with a well taken penalty taking the score to 35 v 3 , two minutes after the restart

However this just seemed to stir March Bears forwards and 2 minutes later Lee Kupyn took a short penalty and with a typical individual run went over the whitewash to score

Ben Pyle then scored at the end of a penalty move in the fiftieth minute and now the score was 47 v 3

Sam Howatt in the 55th minute then scored a very good second try by slicing through the gap and with his 8 conversions took his personal tally for the afternoon to 26 points.

In the 61st minute Bryn Pughsley then took the ball from behind his own posts and with his astonishing acceleration and paced sliced through the whole Peterborough team and scored what was to be final converted try of the game .

Peterborough had had enough and raised the white flag and asked permission from March and the Referee to curtail the game with a quarter of it still to go . As the game had passed the ¾ game mark the score would stand with the league and the players and spectators retired to the bar after seeing what was an intense and scintillating performance from March Bears .

Colin Galbraith

March Bears