Stafford Vets 34 – 25 St Leonards Vets.

In their second game of the season the Vets hosted St. Leonards Vets for a Friday night fixture. The Stafford squad had a healthy mixture of familiar faces looking for a run out under a floodlight Blackberry Lane. There was a raucous crowd in attendance baying for their favourites in this keenly contested local derby.

Stafford began the match well but soon found themselves being penalised for their ill-discipline. St Leonards capitalised on this and opened the scoring with a well-worked try. However, the home team hit back through a try from Gaz Phillips which was successfully converted by Dean Rodwell. Stafford built more pressure and soon extended their lead as Rew Carter timed his run perfectly to explode through a gap and score under the posts with an extravagant finish, again converted by Dean Rodwell. A third try soon followed through Dave Wain as his quick tap from a penalty, caught the opposition defence off-guard and he forced his way over the line. St Leonards pulled a try back to keep the score line close. However, they failed to deal with the resulting restart, and Dave Wain collected the ball and raced through to score his second and Stafford's fourth try.

The second half started well for the visitors and they soon scored their third try to keep in touch with the hosts. Once again, Stafford increased their lead as Rab Cooper finished a good team move with a deserved try. With 15 minutes to go, and both teams beginning to tire, it looked like the scoring had finished for the evening. St Leonards, it appeared, had other ideas. They scored two tries through their number 12 to reduce the gap to just 4 points with 5 minutes remaining. Thankfully, Stafford managed to apply some final pressure and found themselves close to their opponents try line. After a few phases, and with the clock ticking over into the red, the ball found its way to Jonny Smith who accelerated around the last defender to score the final try of the match. A massive thank you and well done to both teams for their commitment and sportsmanship throughout the 80 minutes of local rugby.