Bury V Didsbury Toc H

Having had a week off due to a frozen pitch, Bury were to play their first home game of the year again Didsbury Toc H; a team who had beat the Rams by 55 points to 3 in the reverse fixture earlier in the season and had played two leagues above last year.
The visitors started the stronger of the two teams having taken the kick-off and shifted the ball with pace to the opposite wing where they made inroads into the Bury half. Some strong tackling from Dom Bennett and Joe Kelly could only delay Didsbury from switching the ball back to their left side and crossing the try line. Some appeals were ignored by the referee as it was unclear whether the ball was grounded, but the referee gave the try and Toc H took the early lead. The conversion was missed and the score stood at 0-5.
The restart from Luke Cleary was hit with pin point precision and Disbury's exit strategy was shut down much quicker this time with some great tackling from Ben Holland and Olly Frechini, before hooker, Jonny Allen was able to win a penalty at the break down for the tackled player not releasing in front of the visitor's posts. The penalty was slotted with ease and gave Bury their first points of the afternoon and a belief that they could compete in this fixture.
With the score at 3-5, the first half was to play out with Bury reduced to fourteen players after Jonny Allen was adjudged to have been competing at the ruck illegally. This allowed the visitors to capitalise and increase their lead to 3-13 at the half time break following a try.
After the break Bury were to become increasingly frustrated. With dominance at the break down and a string of penalties in the Didsbury 'Red Zone', the home side felt that they deserved a penalty try or sanctions for the repeat offences, especially following their own punishment earlier in the game. But the visitors were to score next with two penalty kicks which gave Didsbury a convincing 3-18 point lead.
Bury were to eventually get their rewards from a forward marching scrum, powered by Israr Asif, Mark Blain. Number eight, Ben Holland was able to break from the base and quick rucking from Chris Potts and Wayne Elloway allowed Will Smith to feed the ball out to the backs. As the ball was fed from Rick Rothwell and on to Alex English, Hugh Jundy's delicate pop-pass found the oncoming Tai Tupou who with three defenders hanging from him was able to reach over the try line and score for the home side. The conversion was successful and the scores stood at 10-18.
Bury pushed for more points, the visitor's experience showed as they closed the game out and left with the points.
Although disappointed, Bury are now showing a great amount of improvement as each game passes and are competing with teams placed well above them in the league.
Bury now travel to Garstang on Saturday 30th January, kick-off at 2:15pm.