The Blues started the season with a resounding win over Matlock, after a tense open quarter had seen the visitors prevented from taking an early lead when a great try saving tackle by full-back Joe Daniel stopped the Matlock right winger a yard short of the line.

It took the home side 10 minutes to open their account with a Joe Daniel penalty, after an earlier miss, before Shane Ling crossed for the first try in support of a fine handling move, which saw Luis Santos offload for his front row colleague to crash over. Daniel added the extra points.

Jonty Hallett then showed real pace to score a fine unconverted try and then Simon Bartley burst through and dummies his way over for the 3rd try on 27 minutes, with Joe Daniel this time adding the extra' s.

Then scrum - half Tom Bridgeman scored a brace either side of the half-time whistle with Daniel successfully converting both to open up a 36 point lead and secure the 4 try bonus point. Tom Bridgeman then scored his third try on 53 minutes, again converted by Joe Daniel.

With changes being made the game became somewhat disjointed and it wasn't until the 79 th minute that Jonty Hallett scored his second try, converted by Daniel, and then with time running out Daniel finished off a fine performance with a try of his own, which he was unable to convert, but still gave the Blues a perfect start to the season.

With both sides much changed from last season, the Blues are well aware that there will much more difficult challenges to come, but they did all that could be asked and kept the visitors out, whilst still scoring 8 tries themselves. Next weeks trip to Newark will be a real test after the Nottinghamshire sides win at much fancied Ilkeston yesterday.

RAJ Man of the Match - Simon Bartley