Another Saturday, another hard afternoon for Stags against a Grove side who dominated a lot of the forward exchanges in the scrum but who battled to the end and scored three tries themselves, being denied a bonus point try only by some resolute defending by the visitors. Patterns emerge in teams over a season and this game followed a similar pattern to previous games. Stags relatively young pack of forwards came up against a well organised Grove eight and found it difficult to secure clean scrum ball for much of the game and the attacking positions they found themselves in was mainly the result of individuals running out of defence to stress Grove's defence. In fact it was Stags who scored the first try of the game. Deep in their half and under the cosh, a loose ball ended in the arms of Mesake Suiloa who jinked and swerved to outflank the despairing defence trying to catch him. Five nil to Stags after ten minutes. Grove attacked immediately from the restart and were looking like they were going to score with a series of drives and great attacking intent. Stags kept them at bay but gave away a penalty desperately defending their line. Grove opted to take the scrum and scored a pushover try. The successful conversion made the score five to seven in Grove's favour. No sooner had Grove taken the lead and secured a strong attacking position the ball went loose again and this time Malakai Tupoutoutai collected the ball and went virtually the whole length of the field to score Stags second try to regain the lead at 10-7. The game entered a period then where Stags gave away a number of penalties but despite this there was almost another try for the home side, Grove just managing to minor the ball. However Stags set up another scoring opportunity after a strong tackle by Leon Taylor but unfortunately gave away a penalty in the ensuing ruck. From this position Grove broke out and scored their second try to regain the lead at 10-14. With about five minutes remaining of the half, Grove scored their third try after winning a lineout on Stags five metre line and rumbling over. From the restart Stags secured the ball and an impressive run by Leon Taylor almost resulted in a try but again Stags were held up. The half time whistle blew and Grove were leading 10-21. Lots of near misses for Stags, most notably two held up balls over the Grove try line, but there was optimism that Stags were within range going into he second half.

Within five minutes of the restart Stags had scored their third try. This was a great passage of play, the ball moving from the left to the right wing for the spritely Euan Baird to make good ground before feeding Mesake Suiloa to go over for his second try of the afternoon, which he duly converted. This brought Stags to within five points of Grove and a good scrummage suggested the momentum might turn in Stags favour and for the next ten minutes Stags had their best period of the game in terms of field position. However it was Grove who scored next, their bonus point try, and at 17-28 Stags had it all to do. Owen Keatley then made a try saving tackle, Nyasha Maphosa got hold of the ball and put in a great kick which Euan Baird followed up to win a penalty at the breakdown. This was another attacking opportunity for Stags but after establishing a foothold in the opposition twenty two they gave away another penalty and Grove relieved the pressure and forced Stags into a goal line drop out. From this Stags fell off a couple of tackles and Grove scored their fifth try to take the score to 17-35 and almost immediately Stags gave away another try and shortly after a kickable penalty in the last play of the game which Grove converted to take the final score to 17-45 to the visitors.

Well done to Grove but also to all the Stags squad. It is not easy being on the end of a scoreline like this one but as always there was fight right to the end and there were three Stags players who turned out on Saturday after playing for the Bulldogs on Friday evening and thanks to Graham Stewart, Dan Evans and Michael Hammond. A great effort. Thanks also to referee Tony Stapleton and also to the supporters who turned up to watch. News came through that Blues had won at Wootton Bassett and that was good news and then the anticipation of the Six Nations game in Rome. My prediction at the start of the day was that England would lose in Rome but go to Paris and beat France next week. I'm sticking to this and also that Scotland will beat Ireland to win the Championship and Italy will beat Wales. However if Wales beat Italy by 101 points and England are nilled in Paris by seven points or more, Wales will avoid the wooden spoon. I wonder what odds you'd get on that?

Week off for Blues and two weeks off for Stags. March 21st Blues host Cleve which will be good test of how much progress the team has made since our meeting last November at Cleve. They seem to have secured third spot in the table, 18 points ahead of fourth placed Keynsham and if they win their game in hand with a bonus point this will put them only 4 points behind second placed Chippenham so they will be coming to Monks Lane with a lot to play for. Let's make it a noisy afternoon supporting Blues. Stags next game is home to Tadley on 28th March.