In perfect settings at the Grove with the sun out and excellent pitch conditions, Old Halesonians kicked off with Newbold receiving the ball who ran through several missed tackles to create some good handling moves which resulted in them scoring in the corner within a minute of kick off. This was converted to make the score 0-7.

This stunned Old Hales who kicked off and then put Newbold under a lot of pressure in their own 22. This resulted in a few minutes of good pressure but Newbold defence withstood the attacks. Finally the Newbold Fly Half kicked the ball into open space in the Old Halesonians 22. Old Hales picked up the ball but got caught resulting in a ruck; the ball spilled out from the side picked up by Newbold who again scored in the corner, conversion missed to make the score 0-12.

Once again Old Hales kicked off looking shell shocked within the first 10 minutes. Again from the resulting kick off, Newbold were under a lot of pressure from the home side who started to play dome good attacking rugby resulting in penalties being conceded by Newbold. Old Halesonians Scrum Half Jamie Keen took a quick tapped penalty and ran towards the try line. As he was tackled on the try line he managed to off load the ball to winger Joel Keenan who scored in the corner, conversion missed to make the score 5-12.

Old Halesonians dominated the rest of this half resulting in numerous penalties by Newbold. Just before half time, Luke Fenton kicked a penalty to make the score 8-12.

The home side came out and continued to dominate play with lots of attacking rugby but couldn't break down the Newbold defence. Old Hales continued to attack but unfortunately conceded a penalty which Newbold kicked to the corner for a line-out. Old Hales tried to defend the line-out and it appeared to have gone into touch from the stand but the referee gave the try, conversion missed to make the score 8-17.

Again Old Hales came back with lots of attacking play which resulted in a fine flowing move with Full Back Dylan Robinson scoring in the corner to make the score 13-17. Conversion missed.

The home side continued to attack again and again and should have scored but the Newbold defence held strong and in the last five minutes of the game Newbold counter attacked and camped on Old Hales try line and eventually scored their final try which was converted to make the full time score 13-24.

Head Coach James Angove said: "with the amount of possession and domination we had, this is a game we should have won. We cannot afford to let cheap tries in early in the game and then have to ply catch up rugby for 80 minutes. We have good numbers at training and we will continue to work on this ahead of our fixture next week where we welcome Worcester to the Grove".

Report submitted by Old Halesonians