Shorn of a few influential players due to injury and availability and playing in conditions that really didn’t suit Sandbach’s game, this was always going to be a tricky match for a youthful looking Sandbach outfit. In the end a late converted try by the visitors, in a tight game, in the wind and rain, meant the Bach didn’t even get a losing bonus point for their efforts. In a game of fine margins DK capitalised on Sandbach errors for their scores and played in the right areas particularly in the last quarter, and that ensured they came away with the spoils.

The game had been rearranged from a month ago, when the match had been postponed following an outbreak of Covid in the West Midlander’s camp and this meant Sandbach were missing a few players, it originally being scheduled for a free weekend. Further the conditions certainly were never going to be to their liking, with a steady shower and breeze across the pitch, not being conducive to an open flowing game. Sandbach at least welcomed back James Preston and Ali Burton to the starting XV, which saw the odd player in unfamiliar positions and also included James Finucane after a three-year absence following surgery to repair his anterior cruciate ligament. The first half saw just the one score as James Preston kicked a penalty for Sandbach, whilst DK’s Sam Vaughan saw three similar efforts go wide. Overall though it was a dire forty minutes, littered with handling errors by both outfits.

Sandbach increased their lead fifteen minutes into the second half with a second Preston penalty but from then on found it increasingly difficult to get out of their own half, as the visitors began to be content to play close to their big pack and keep the ball. Eventually this policy paid off as Sandbach lost control of a ball at the back of a scrum on their own line and DK’s scrum half Joe Dunn dived on the loose ball to score. A Vaughan conversion, putting them a point ahead. It remained like this until the closing minutes of the game, as Sandbach chasing the game, attempted to run the ball out from their own line. Not for the first time, the ball again went loose and Dudley’s big second row man Dan Marsh was there, to accept the gift. Vaughan’s conversion putting paid to even the consolation bonus point.

Not the greatest game or performance from the Sandbach boys, but at least they can take comfort that they were able to blood a few youngsters again and enable them to gain experience of rugby at this level. Things will not get any easier when Paviors visit next weekend, who despite being in the lower half of the table, as this result shows, there are no easy games at this level.