This week Ripon 2xv travelled away to play York 3s. Things didn't bode well when before the game Shaun Bartlem rang to say that his car had broken down and that he couldnt get to Ripon from Bedale. With only 2 Props on the bench, Paul Blood quickly got in his car and picked up the correct twin and whisked him to York. What was surprising was that they arrived before Adam Newcombe and Rob Nicholson who were the 1st to set off for York from Ripon!

With a few drop-outs from last week, the 2nd XV only had 14 players available on Tuesday. Luckily we managed to get 3 players from the 1s who needed game time for fitness. Ripon started the game with strong runs from Davin Jones and Elliot Fern. They also managed to dominate the scrum and provide good ball from the lineout to the backs.

Last weeks game was completely forgotten as trys from Matt Binks, Davin Jones, Jack Stiddard, Rob Nicholson and Elliot Fern x2 accompanied with 4 conversions from Patrick Whitaker gave Ripon a healthy 40 - 14 lead at halftime.

In the second half the old gremlins started to appear again. Instead of keeping things simple, it seemed that the away team thought they could score from everywhere. Offloads where grounded and rucks were lost at an alarming rate. Tackles were missed and this allowed the home side to score a number of trys. Injuries did mount up with captain Andrew Williamson, Jack Burton and Elliot Fern all having to go off injured.

However, the scrum was still dominant and Ripons answer to Ledley King (Kier Walker) managed to give the backs some good ball to work with.

Further trys were scored by Jack Baker, Phil Graham and Patrick Whitaker. Whitaker managed to convert them all.

Final Scoreline was a well deserved win of 61-40 to Ripon.

Ripon scored some good trys today which bodes well for future games. The only thing that needs to happen is for the side to play sensible rugby and not try to score wherever they are on the field.

Patrick Whitaker receives the MOM award for his sublime kicking display. And for DOD it is Jack Baker who thought he was taking the kit home to get washed by his mum!

Next week we travel away again! This time to play Leos 2xv.

Hopefully with the RWC finishing this week, more members of the club will be available for all 3 teams to put out a full compliment of players and subs. As a club we have been doing really well over the past few weeks, with each team having a minimum of 2 subs!