CS were outmuscled and eventually totally worn down by a very big and powerful Bury side. Disruptive injuries including losing stand-in stand-off James Houstoun after just twenty minutes did nothing to help the Stags’ cause and by the end of the game it seemed to be a case of who was still standing. True, they had undoubtedly fallen off a few tackles along the way but they had given their all against a team that was just far better equipped on the day.

The game had started badly for the Stags with a converted try conceded after barely three minutes. There followed , however a prolonged period of play in Bury’s twenty-two when it seemed that a Stags’ score was bound to come and whilst no one could possibly say that this had any critical bearing on the game as a whole it would have done no harm at all for morale had that pressure then been turned into points.

As it was it was only after Houston had left the field with painfully bruised ribs that Bury began to flourish again. He had made a reasonable fist of things at ten until then with a couple of lively breaks. Now, however Bury scored twice more in quick succession and at 19-0 after 25 minutes the game was effectively over and the Stags were staring down a very long barrel. Anthony Lavea , once of Bury, switched bravely from nine to ten and was the inspiration for the best of CS’s efforts in the rest of the half – when play was again strangely very even with the Stags again coming close to scoring - but the home side were very good at closing down the space and on the stroke of half-time it was the home side who scored again.
Stags torn apart by the Wolves

Despite the ominous score-line CS started the second-half brightly and it was at least Tom Devereux who after a period of sustained CS pressure finally converted one of the drives for the line by the forwards into points. Despite it being by no means one-way traffic, Bury were now dominating possession, if not quite so comprehensively territory, and CS were having to do an awful lot of tackling. As pressure mounted so the gaps appeared and the home side were able to score further tries at regular intervals. By the close CS had been well and truly done over by the best side they have played thus far this season.

CS Rugby 1863 try scorer : Tom Devereux.