A depleted Burnham side were beaten 30-20 by North Bristol.

North Bristol 30 pts

Burnham 20 pts

BURNHAM travelled to North Bristol with a depleted squad of 16 players, not the ideal scenario to play a team that were riding high in the league.

Burnham started brightly and found themselves in North’s territory and soon took the lead from a penalty by Tim Piper, before North levelled with a penalty. With penalties starting to rack up it was only a matter of time until the inevitable happened and Bryan Webb was sin binned for an infringement at a maul.

From the resulting penalty, North kicked to the corner and from the line-out they drove Burnham back to score a well-controlled try. Within a couple of minutes they scored their second to make it 15-3 at half-time.

Burnham were forced into a change at the break with captain Russ Pike going off with Matt Bonel coming on, but they soon conceded two more tries to take the score to 25-3.

It took all of 55 minutes for Burnham to realise their strengths which was the dominant forward pack, so from every opportunity Burnham took scrums and line-outs and managed to score a pushover try with Stu Blake touching down.

Burnham scored again with a simple catch and drive which saw Sam Coles flop over to build the score up to 25-13. The comeback was soon ended when a mistake at the back let North through to take their total to 30-13.

Burnham had the final say of the game when they were awarded a penalty try to finish the scoreline off at 30-20.

Burnham 2nd XV 27

Tor 2nd XV 7

TOR turned up with only 14 men and managed to take an early lead with a converted try.

Burnham woke up and camped in Tor’s half, which allowed Greg Gosden to crash over to make it 5-7. Soon after, Ryan Reynolds forced his way over for his first-ever senior try to put the home team 10-7 up at half-time.

Burnham rang the changes at half-time with appearances from Ed Lewis, Dan Ford, Dan Thorne, Mark O’Regan, Mike Nash, Ash Morris and Joe Osgood.

A more composed half saw the home side run in a further three tries from Osgood, Ben Gibb and Lewis, with the later being converted by Alex Watkins, which secured the much needed bonus point and a 27-7 win.