Basingstoke lose at home to Lydney 3-19

Despite a tremendous effort Basingstoke were unable to defeat second placed Lydney at down grange on Saturday. The FX-backed side gave promotion pushing Lydney a real scare as they looked to add to their recent run of good results. The final score of 19-3 did not reflect the run of play as 8 points in the last 10 minutes flattered Lydney, who had been forced to defend for much of the second-half. An early stalemate between the two teams was broken after 5 minutes when Ian Calder converted a penalty from 30 metres to post Basingstoke's only points of the game. A series of errors from Stoke resulted in Lydney levelling the scores after 10 minutes as they were awarded a penalty in front of the posts. Stoke, playing uphill in the first half now looked to attack but by trying to force an extra pass when it wasn't needed were continually turned over in promising positions. Lydney used this and a series of strange refereeing decisions, that were constantly to their benefit to work their way into Stoke's 22. Here Lydney were awarded several more penalties but a reluctance to go for goal meant that it was not until the 24th minute that any points were scored. Great Stoke defence stopped several 5 metre lineout and scrums until Lydney finally accepted a simple penalty in front of the posts. Stoke were forced to defend for the rest of the first half and were not helped when they had to reshuffle their pack with both locks getting injured in the space of 5 minutes. Solid defence continued to keep Lydney at bay though until just as the hard work seemed to be done and half-time would come to Stokes rescue a 30 metre drive from a lineout saw Lydney score the first try of the game.

Half time 3-11

Basingstoke came out in the second-half all guns blazing and straight from the restart nearly scored as Yann Cullum was just beaten to a kick to the corner. Calder then missed a difficult penalty as Stoke continued to apply pressure. Chris Norton was twice pulled up 5 metres short and made another excellent break, but the final pass again went astray. Then came a serious talking point in the match when after 20 minutes of the second-half a Lydney 5 metre scrum on their own line wilted under Stoke pressure and the clearance kick was charged down by Richard Baker. Tom Dean was first to react and touched town only for the try to be disallowed as Baker supposedly knocked on. If that try had of been given Stoke would have gone on to win the game but as it was Lydneys first venture into Basingstoke territory resulted in their full-back collecting a loose ball and scoring out wide. To add salt into the wound in the last minute of play a Lydney lock struck a drop-goal from 35 metres that sailed through the posts. Despite the loss Stoke will take more positives than negatives from this game, especially the work rate and the fact they once again proved they can compete with the best teams in this league.

After Ian Calder added "The effort the players put in was tremendous and it showed the improvement we have made since playing them in the cup. What we learnt was that we have to put away chances that are created as we had three good breaks that should of resulted in tries and none were scored. Lydney created two chances and converted both as well as being gifted one by us. The forwards competed well and credit given to them but man of the match was the late starting debut to Martin Wright who epitomised the spirit of the team."

link to RFU site