After Oscar Fawkes-Underwood was helping Bournville to clinch the Regional One Midlands title with a 28-27 win at Banbury on Saturday his team-mates from the Colts completed a successful weekend by inflicting a first defeat of the season on Malvern at Avery Fields.
Malvern arrived as unbeaten leaders of the North Midlands Colts League having won all nine of their previous matches, but were beaten 48-42 by a committed Bourns side who are now fourth in the table, a reflection of the side’s improvement this season.
Bourns flew out of the blocks, stunning a potentially over-confident Malvern team with three quickfire tries from George Bann, Dillon Smyth and Zach Reilly to race into a 17-0 lead.
The inevitable fightback ensued but Bourns dug in and went into half time with a 27-14 lead after centre Carter Wells gathered his own kick to score with the last play of the half. This was quickly turned into a 34-14 lead after a perfectly worked lineout move saw number eight Chinedu Morah go over untouched.
Malven then burst into life with four converted tries that could have been several more without some heroic defence, especially from man-of-the-match full back Lewis Barney, who made three astonishing last-ditch tackles to keep Bourns in touching distance with their much vaunted opponents.
With the score 34-42 in Malvern’s favour and less than five minutes remaining it looked as if Bourns’ efforts were going to be in vain only for the team spirit and fight, which has been a real feature of their season, to be shown once more. Chinedu went over again to get Bourns within a point and then Carter scored his second with the final play of the game to seal a fantastic victory for the Colts.
Coach Matt Mirecki said: “This team has shown all season that they have the skills to compete with the best teams in the area and it’s great for them to prove that with today’s result against a phenomenally strong Malvern side. What sets this team apart is their togetherness, they work so hard for each other and give everything they have until the final whistle, as shown with how they finished today.”
The Colts side has also benefited from the Player Pathway put in place to link the age groups with the senior teams this season. During the previous round of league fixtures Bourns fielded seven players who have come through the Club’s Minis and Juniors setup. Fawkes-Underwood and Nieve McNally have played for the Men’s and Women’s first teams respectively, and Bournville Blues included five current Colts – George Bann, Sam Barnickle, Eugene Madzima, Alfie Chandler and Tom Chandler – in their side for a recent league match at Upton on Severn.
This is testament to the increased focus this season on giving age group players greater experience of playing adult rugby by training with and playing for our senior teams. With a genuine pathway from M&Js into the first team set up having now been established, we expect to hear more good news stories from our Colts and age group teams in the future.
