The Papa John competition provided excellent competition and end of season interest in its first two years, but nothing compared with our first ever game against Bugbrooke (Played at Northampton Men’s Own, due to lack of pitch availability ) This resulted in an amazing game and probably the biggest turnaround in the club’s history.

At first it looked as though Bugbrooke had borrowed a sloping pitch for the day, in order to upset our style and we were 31-0 down at half time with a declaration pending, but we shuffled the team, brought on our substitutes and with the slope in our favour, began to get on top and feed the ball to our dangerous backs. Joe Johnson started the recovery with a try just after half time and this was followed by scores from Freddie Spencer Josh Tockley, Jake Dallyn and Sam Bond, as we gradually reduced the lead to one score. In the final play, Freddie drove over for his second try to level at 39 all leaving nerveless James Dunne kick the conversion - which he did for a 41-39 win – John Warner’s full report is on the website

After this amazing recovery we are now due to play Stockwood Park in the second round, at Moorefields on 26 April. Stockwood Park are from Luton and they were regular opponents back in the era of “friendly fixtures” We played each other for the first time in 1977 and they filled a mid-April slot in the fixture list, with three teams heading down the M1 and three teams heading up here This lasted until 1989 and after that we were drawn into different parts of the league pyramid and we went our separate ways. We did meet a few times at the end of the 1990s, when we were both in Midlands, 1 but we haven’t played since then. Overall, we have met 17 times and the record is 8-8, with I game drawn

The fourth draw for the 200 club was made on Saturday and the lucky winners were - £300 Hayley White, £200 Chris Trickey, £100 Conor Chamberlain and £50 Charlie Gardner

The Second XV programme now seems to be completed. The number of games played was disappointing at 8, although we still managed to field 56 players - about the same as the 1st Team. They won 4 and lost 4 but no-one came close to playing in all the games. Ant Batchelor and Oli Boyes played 5 and Brandon Kellett, Mark Lazarov, Sam Richards, Callum Sinnott, Josh Tockley, Haydon Waller and Blu Wilson all played 4. Calum Sinnott and Cam Dewey were top try scorers with 3 and Stu Campbell was top points scorer with 25.

The attraction of floodlit Veterans games had some impact on our ability to turn out a second team on some weekends. Their aim was to play one game a month, usually on a Friday night, which they managed to do, winning 5 and losing 1. The Vets and 2nds were to some extent interchangeable and gave additional opportunities for some players to play in both sides. Tom Daplyn was top try scorer for the Vets with 4 in two starts and his 20-point total was matched by the boot of Tom Jewitt.

The Colts still have fixtures to complete. They are away this Saturday at Keresley and on 26 April they host Rugby St Andrews, kick off time to be confirmed to tie in with the Stockwood Park game.

Leamington Royals will be beginning their season shortly and their early season fixtures are below. A full fixture list will follow

3 May – friendly at home
10 May – Oxford Cavaliers away
17 May - Bulldogs at home
24 May - Telford Raiders at home
31 May - Sherwood Wolfhounds away

Coventry Rugby Club are offering 25% community discounts for their final three games in May at the Butts Park Arena against -
3 May – Cornish Pirates
17 may – Nottingham
31 MAY - London Scotish
Discount code – covcommunity 25 – to be used on the checkout on their website

Finally – congratulations to Under 16 player Billy Calder who has been selected into the First Point USA rugby union programme which will qualify him for a US University scholarship in August 2027. Congratulations Billy

Johnlizlyons@btopenworld.com