Saracens victorious in the rain at Bury

The Saracens travelled to Bury for a very wet friendly against their third team on Saturday. The squad looked strong, having been bolstered with a couple of first team players owing to their lack of fixture this weekend. On arrival it was announced that scrums would have to be uncontested, because, while they had a squad of 22, Bury only had two front row players. Freddie Cornish dutifully stepped up, and went to play Hooker for the opposition.
The Saracens made a strong start from their kick-off to immediately regain possession of the ball and push deep into the opponents half, and after making a strong break Jack Peacock wriggled through the bury defence to put Diss on the score board within 5 minutes. Abdul Goymour then converted to make it a seven point lead. Bury restarted, and a strong catch by Dan Hooper put the Saracens straight back in the Bury half, and following a series of mauls by the forwards Pete Bray crashed over the line for the second try, again converted by Abdul. This time from the restart the wet conditions hampered the catch, and the ball was spilled forwards, giving Bury the scrum deep in Diss’ half, and the potential to get on the scoreboard. The Diss pack then made short work of Bury, easily pushing them off the ball, to once again break away down the field. The now extremely wet conditions led to many knock-ons and spillages of the ball by both teams. The condition of the ball; resembling something like a bar of soap, certainly didn’t help matters. The frustration was evident in both teams, and one of the Bury props felt the need to vent his frustrations by head-butting Diss 8 James Gowing, twice, right in front of the referee. He was duly sent to the sin-bin to calm down a little. Gowing replied virtually instantly by breaking through the Bury defence, to score just to the left of the posts, with the conversion making a 21 point lead.
Diss looked ever stronger as Bury started to tire, and a series of well executed moves by the backs put Mike Skeets over in the corner, with Goymour again sending the ball sailing between the sticks. However, the slippery ball was making things very difficult and scrum half Wilbur Hemmant found it especially tough to get the ball away from the set piece. Shortly before half time Diss again pushed bury off their own ball at the scrum, and Hemmant made a quick pass to Peacock, who again broke the line to score his second try, with Goymour narrowly missing the conversion as the final play of the half. This took the Saracens into the break leading 33-0.
Shortly after the break one of the Bury props injured his shoulder and left the field, leaving scrums uncontested. Freddie Cornish changed back into Blue kit, and Tim Groom retired to the side-line for a rest. This took a lot of momentum from the Saracens game, and let the Bury side back into the game a little. The second half developed into a somewhat scrappy affair, with endless knock-ons. Later in the half though Pete–the wrecking ball-Bray found himself on the wing, running downhill with enormous momentum, and having bounced three or four Bury players out of his path he crossed the line to score his second try for the day. Again Abdul slotted the ball between the posts from close to the touchline into the wind. Diss immediately looked dangerous from the restart, and it looked as though centre Giles West had put Henry Passmore over in the corner, but again the grip free ball was spilled forward. Bury then made one last ditch attempt to get on the scoreboard, but to no avail, leaving the scoreboard at 40-0 as the final whistle sounded, and the Saracens contented not to have conceded a point.