BERFC 17 - 27 Enfield Ignatians

Once again we’d dodged the mud of Byng Road – this time for the 4G pitch at Allianz Park – the home of Saracens Professionals.

New pitch and new opposition -this time in the shape of Enfield Ignatians. Ignatians field a mixed U15s and U16s and currently sit second in HML U16s Div 5. They had recently defeated our U16s in the league – so we knew this would be a tough fixture.

We opted to play 3 x 25 minutes – to give all players a decent run out on the artificial pitch.

The first period was more about getting used to the pitch – and the bounce – as well as the realisation that the recommendation for leggings was well founded as yards of skin were left on the turf.

Ignatians had a big set of forwards and the Barnet pack were unable to stamp their usual dominance on the game – with the Ignatians tight head prop and 6 ft 4” second row particularly dangerous. In addition, they had a couple of big strong running backs who were a real handful, and the Barnet back line had to work hard to contain them.

With 20 minutes on the clock, the big Ignatian number 5 snapped the ball up from 5 yards out and put them ahead at the end of the first period 0 – 5.

With a change of Barnet personnel for the second period – Ignatians were first on the score sheet again, increasing their lead to 0 - 10, but the late Mr Collins closed the gap with one of his trademark bullocking runs 5 – 10 , and a further try apiece closed the second period at 10 – 17 .

The final period, and another rotation of Barnet personnel saw two more tries from Ignatians, one particularly well worked off of the back of a scrum, the other from a cross field kick – with a single response from Barnet through Louis W to close the match at 17 - 27 .

Good opposition to be playing against in preparation for our final league game – a mixed Barnet side acquitted themselves well against a big strong Ignatians side that fielded three U16s for the whole match.

Another team we’ll be looking to add to our fixture list for next season.

Mentions in dispatches:
Pav – great performance on the left wing, tackle after tackle
Eddie – great tackling – and the grass burns to show it
Liam P – tackle, tackle, tackle
Kadeem – always a threat
Ryan – some great line breaks

Verdict on the 4G pitch – wouldn’t want to play on it every week – seemed to be a number of muscular injuries on both side, and many of the boys suffered nasty grass burns.

Back to the mud next week