Ivel travelled up the road to face their local rivals North Dorset on a crisp and cold Sunday morning. The Ivel outfit had not played since the 22nd Jan because of the frozen pitches so they were keen to play a match.

From the start both teams were intent on getting the ball wide to exploit the space on a wide pitch. The North Dorset forwards started well and had the upper hand in the tight, which created a lot of possession for the their skilful backs to pressure the Ivel try line. But some aggressive tackling by the Ivel back row of Dan Long, Elliot Berryman and Brendan Hawkins kept North Dorset at bay. After the first ten minutes of North Dorset pressure the Ivel team started to lose their ring rustiness and put together some good passages of play, which resulted in a break by Dan Long who interlinked with Archie Mitchell and then Dan Long drove over for the opening try.

The score from the Ivel team seem to spur on North Dorset who scored a breakaway try after some poor tackling by Ivel. Both teams were determined to play some open and expansive rugby and the ball was moved through both sets of hands really well.  The Ivel forwards started to up their game and applied some pressure on the North Dorset pack.  This resulted in a penalty which allowed some good inter-passing, Harry McHugh powered over to score. But again North Dorset broke through the Ivel defence to even the scores up. The final score of the half came from a lineout steal by Elliot Berryman and the ball was recycled that allowed Carl Morgan to slice through the North Dorset team to score.

The second half started with the Ivel pack dominating in both the scrums and lineouts and with Sam Hulland, Brandan Coleman and Elliot Ryan driving the ball forward in the tight. Ivel had some quick go forward ball. The ball was moved well down the Ivel back line and Tom Shackell, Tom Parnell and Archie Mitchell were unlucky not to score. However, North Dorset scored another break away try which lead to a very tense final 10minutes of the game.

Both teams were desperate to get the winning score but after some great rucking by the Ivel pack the ball came out quickly and Carl Morgan saw the smallest of gaps and darted through to score and to win the match.

The game was played in a great spirit with both sides producing a high skill level and good level of fitness.

Final score

Ivel 22 vs North Dorset 17

Scorers

Try

Dan Long, Harry McHugh, Carl Morgan 2

Conversion

Carl Morgan