The Boars travelled to Hastings to play the ‘new boys’ of Cinque Ports without a tight head prop or obvious front row replacement. Veteran second row converted to loose head prop Mike MacLeod offered to convert once more and said he would try to hold up the tight head equipped only with a short lesson from injured Joe Geesin.

The Boars looked sluggish during the warm up and started the match in similar fashion. Any ball won seemed to come out slowly and the Boars backs did not seem to be passing with any fluency. The set pieces were evenly contested with Kenny Lewis dominant at the front of the lineout on his return from honeymoon and the scrum evenly contested. Cinque Ports were playing better than expected with several dangerous attacked snuffed out by good tackles.

OOH look Brady making a tackle!! well more of a hug actually...

The deadlock was broken by Dave Rhodes following up a kick ahead to touch down by the posts and then convert his own score. This seemed to settle the Boars a bit and a good spell of pressure followed. During this period the ‘disaster scenario’ struck when prop Nick Kerr injured his shoulder in a tackle and had to go off. Come the hour, come the man and Paul Hookway stepped up and offered his services and while he may have had more comfortable afternoons he did a good solid job in that unfamiliar role.

Shortly afterwards a well worked backs move saw the ball travel wide to winger Simon Hollingdale who broke a couple of tackles around the 22 metre line and sprinted through to score. This score was not converted and the score stayed 0-12 until half time.

Lineout agianst the head...

From the kick off it was clear that Ports wanted this match and were heartened when their number 8 collected and took off on a run reminiscent of the Boars own Dave Cook. He went through several weak tackles in a 30 metre rumble and even though he was eventually stopped CP had established good field position and they were determined to gain points. Several phases of play later CP established a maul that sucked in too many Boars defenders and a try ensued. This was converted to take the score to 7-12 and raised the possibility that all the hard work against East Grinstead might be thrown away.

Paul "Handsome Shreck" Hookway slows down the 8 so Tony can get stuck in...

Luckily this score seemed to wake the Boars up - in particular the backs who began to make better use of the ball they received. The decisive score came at the end of a 3 phase move (well done to Dan Bird for a good recycle and pass) when a determined Brady Burdett carried two tacklers over to score a try he then converted.

Next came the best try of the match when hard working inside centre Julian Wates dummied (You sure!! slipped more like...) the pass and rumbled into the acres of open space that had opened up and made the 30 metres to the line in great style. The Boars were not significantly trouble after this and the icing was put on the cake when Burdett went over in the corner for his second and the Boars fifth try of the match. Cinque Ports must be congratulated for their progress this season and for the team spirit they are building but the Boars did enough to come away with the victory they needed.

Man of the Match was Paul Hookway for saving a 10 point penalty by standing in as prop and putting in an excellent ball carrying performance throughout the match.

Boars Team – N. Kerr (S. Barrow - 20), J. Sharp, M. MacLeod, P. Hookway, T. Rose, M. Brown (D. Bird – 50), K. Lewis (B. Groves – 65), J. Parsons, D. Rhodes, B. Burdett, J. Wates, A. Farrell, S. Hollingdale, K. Davies, M. Barber

Match report by Mike MacLeod

1/26/2008 5:37:26 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)