Injury-hit Bears battle to the end during league loss at Fakenham

A depleted March Bears outfit fought to the very end during a 43-20 Counties 2 Eastern Counties defeat at Fakenham on Saturday.

On an ideal day for rugby with no wind or rain, travelled to Fakenham with six regular first-team members missing due to injury then only to see a further two players pull up in the warm-up to leave only two regular backs in the starting line-up

Despite their predicament, March managed to hold Fakenham well for the first half before eventually fading away in the second half.

March opened the scoring in the first five minutes with a penalty for Fakenham not rolling away.

Tom Lumley stepped up with no regular place kickers available and slotted the ball through the middle of the posts.

After 14 minutes, some very scrappy ball was kicked through by Fakenham and was dropped on by their fly-half, who also kicked the conversion.

Eight minutes later, a well-taken interception by the Fakenham no.13 over for an unconverted try.

With Will Gladwin having to leave the field with a serious collar bone injury, Kyle Stanford came on as a substitute and turned it into a Man-of-the-Match performance commencing with a try when he forced himself through a stream of Fakenham players.

Lumley added to his kick tally to make the score 12-10 to the hosts.

Following up to this was a well-executed Fakenham backs move which saw a converted try.

After a series of rucks and mauls, the ever-strong Henry Mair went over for March’s second try as Fakenham went into the break holding a 19-15 advantage.

Bears continued to show great courage but 12 minutes into the second period, Fakenham's fly-half managed to score an individual try before threading a kick through for their centre to increase the score to 31-15 a few minutes later.

The Bears roared back with prop Aiden Gray bursting through the Fakenham defence line on halfway and then linked up with Harvey Davies who ran in an excellent try in the right-hand corner.

Further injuries saw Dan Ryan coming out of the second row to play in the centre as the home side added a further two scores late on.

Bears can hold their heads up high after battling ferociously to the very end.