Deeping Dinosaurs vs Stamford Vets

Dinos exploit their youth and pace!

Deeping Dinos received a late call on 30th November from Stamford Vets for a fixture on 5th December. By Tuesday 1st the Dinos were up to 12 players and confirmed the fixture. We travelled to Stamford with 17 players which included 4 younger recruits without whom the fixture could not have gone ahead but when they arrived at Stamford Pete Bradley, a former Deeping first team captain defected to Stamford (they had asked him first) and the fixture got even tougher.
The Dinos started playing downhill with the wind at their backs but were unable to exploit this advantage. The Stamford pack was dominant in the scrum and the Dinos couldn't get the ball out to their backs where their advantage lay. A knee injury to Matt Hawkes came as a blow to the Dinos but they were bolstered by the late arrival of Lance Charity. Relentless pressure from the Stamford pack saw them in to half time with a 5 nil lead.
In the second half the Dinos pack found a second wind and started getting the ball back to their 8 before the Stamford pack could exploit their superior weight and the backs finally got some ball. The Dinos backs produced some great handling and pace which Stamford just couldn,t live with and ran in 5 tries to Stamford's 2 in the second half with 2 to Kelvin Squires, 2 to Lance Charity and 1 for Timmy Shilling. Lance also converted 3 of the tries. Stamford's final try came from a surging run from Pete Bradley (did I mention that he is an ex Deeping captain?) and the game finished 31- 15 to the Dinos. There was some moaning from the Stamford boys that the Dinos were 'not a proper vets team' but without the younger players there wouldn't have been a fixture and as Stamford have been all conquering this season it was great to put a 'W' on them.
Man of the match for the Dinos was Andy Perry, described by the Stamford captain as a 'constant pain in the arse' at flanker - there can be no finer tribute!