Blues find their second wind

The game began with a stiff cross field wind, which appeared to favour the side playing down the slope. The Blues had this apparent advantage but fell behind after less than 2 minutes when they firstly failed to deal with the kick off and then defended poorly as Belgrave exploited the overlap the Blues had gifted them, to take a 5-0 lead.

The Blues responded and Damian Conyard scored his first of a brace of tries after 7 minutes to level the scores.

The home side continued to cause problems with their forward drives and close support play, but as the half wore on the Blues running game began to stretch the hosts, and on 25 minutes Josh Cox scored the second try with Andy Byrne adding the extra's. Before the break, and with the pressure building Byrne kicked a penalty to open up a 15-5 lead, which didn't appear to be enough under the conditions.

However, the home side had spent a lot of time and energy defending in the first period and as the game wore on the gaps began to appear. The Blues had to firstly get over a Steve Fraher yellow card and then set about their task with much enthusiasm.

Firstly, on 57 minutes, Shane Ling scored his first ever 1st team try, and 5 minutes later Byrne scored himself, and adding the extra points effectively ended the Belgrave resistance. Then Ling, not content with a single score, crossed under the posts and Byrne matched him with his second try, converting both, to add to his fine individual points tally.

Conyard then scored his second try of the day, with Byrne again successful with the conversion, before the home side showed some defiance with a converted try of their own.

The Blues had the final say in the very last play of the game with Jordan Butlin scoring under the posts to make Byrne's conversion a simple task, and bring his personal tally up to 25 and earn the man of the match award, despite serious challenges from Shane Ling, Connor Horgan, Tom Bridgeman and the Josh's, Block and Cox.

RAJ Man of the Match: Andy Byrne