Elks Suffer Another Home Defeat.

The Elks were missing Greg, Dan & Lewis Taylor with Joel Haigh and Chris Tipton also out through injury, the team was shuffled around and there was a debut for Isaac Taylor.

Elks made a dreadful start playing uphill when following a knock on at the kick off the defence went missing to allow the centre to stroll through untouched for the first score after only a minute, converted to make it 0-7.

Elks responded well with McGuire running hard, the ball was recycled and moved left but the Elks were penalised for holding on. Bugbrooke cleared down field and pressed the Elks to gain a scrum, the ball was chipped ahead and hesitancy in the Elks defence allowed the Bugbrooke winger to gather the ball and score, converted to make it 0-14 after only 5 minutes.

Elks were finding it tough uphill with Bugbrooke`s defence looking solid, forcing errors from the Elks. Following another Elks penalty Bugbrooke took the shot at goal and extended their lead to 0-17 after 13 mins.

It continued to be all Bugbrooke as Elks made mistakes under pressure from excellent defence. Bugbrooke attacked again and were held up short. From the ensuing scrum they broke quickly and the scrum half touched down on 32 mins, converted to make it 0-24. Jonathan Falls was replaced by Isaac Taylor on 37 mins following a blood injury. Elks only real chance in the Bugbrooke 22 came after 37 mins but poor decision making lost any chance, this brought the end to a desperate half from the Elks facing a 24 point deficit.

Dean Chapman & Tom Holland replaced Marc Moore & Ben Wells at half time and Falls returned following the blood injury. Elks now had the slope and were looking for some spark to get back into the game.

Elks soon had good territory and following drives from Ryan Mills & Adam Corcoran the ball was moved right to find Falls in space who sprinted through to gain the Elks first score, Falls converted his own try to make it 7-24 after 44 mins.

Elks gained in confidence from the score and started to look much sharper, Simon Bennett was replaced by Taylor on 48 mins. Elks were working hard but too many knock on’s were halting progress.

Elks gained some good territory and attacked again, a high tackle from Bugbrooke resulted in a yellow card on 59 mins, Elks kicked to touch and caught the line out, the maul was dragged down and Bugbrooke were penalised. This was repeated minutes later and this time the referee yellow carded a second Bugbrooke player on 64 mins. The 2 man advantage soon paid off and Falls scored his second try and converted to make it 14-24 after 65 mins.

Good pressure from the Elks soon had them in the Bugbrooke 22 and quick hands put Alex Ayres through but he was dragged down just short by a desperate Bugbrooke defence, despite the 2 man advantage the Elks ball handling was letting them down. Bugbrooke were now back to 15 players and any chance of getting back in the game was soon snuffed out when Bugbrooke pounced on a loose ball from a sloppy Elks scrum and scored in the right corner, the conversion was missed but time was up with the final score at 14-29.

All credit to Bugbrooke who started the game much better and were defensively sound, Elks must be bitterly disappointed with a very poor first half and although things improved in the second half could still not find the required scores with a 2 man advantage. As the song goes Things can only get better! Next week sees a trip to Coalville and hopefully a return to winning ways.

Man of the Match goes to Jono Falls who was a constant threat when given decent ball to work with.