Out of the Cup with our heads held high. In the end, we were probably beaten by a slightly better side, but boy did we give them a shock.

Both sides played superb rugby, enjoying spells of possession and territory, with the difference in the end down to Lymm's kicking game.

I was so proud of the way our lads played. Lymm have enjoyed a few year's of success, and could be one of the teams that could win the competition, and they quickly realised they were in a tough game, and we were not going to be bullied, but the lads conducted themselves superbly.

In spite of going down to an early penalty, the game ebbed and flowed, until we conceded an unfortunate try. Lymm kicked through, and when it deflected of a Sandbach leg when charging down, the ball went dead to give a 5 metre scrum, from which Lymm profitted to go 10-0 up.

Then the pendulum swung, with Sandbach enjoying territory, possession and playing some fantastic rugby. Joe Branson stormed over to score a converted try, to bring the score to 7-10, with us battering them. Half-time came just at the right time for Lymm, with us on the ascendancy, and they re-grouped.

The second half was another tight affair, with both sides (rightly) having scores disallowed, until a fantastic break from Lymm's Fly-half extended their lead to 17-7. again we came back at them, and a penalty awarded to us, was bravely run from a kickable position for Cameron Beech to score to bring the score back to 12-17. The game could have gone either way at this point, with neither team giving any quarter.

Lymm's kicking game got them out of trouble on a few occasions, and there was no doubting the quality of their back 3. With both sides tiring Lymm just found that little extra, to score an unconverted try with 10 minutes to go, to just take the game out of touch for us.

Credit to both sides for the quality of rugby, pride and passion, but our lads were superb. In the face of a tough side, even the mildest of our lads were involved, and I worried for some of our more volatile boys, but they all coped superbly.

Everyone, to a man, should be proud of the performance. Lymm were extremely complimentary after the game, with them agreeing that was their toughest game to date, and everyone performed superbly. We couldn't pick a Man of the Match for the forwards, as it was impossible to separate them, their standards were so high. In the backs, again, standards were excellent, but one player stood out just a little bit, with the most composed game defensively and in attack, to make us tick at scrum-half, Thomas Lea.

Good Luck to Lymm for the Cup.

Be proud everyone, we have something really special here.