BURNAGE 26 BURY 27

THE flood plains of South Manchester forced Burnage to move their first XV pitch and, as a result, Bury found themselves playing on one of the widest pitches they had ever seen.

The relocated pitch was some 85 yards wide and it worked admirably to Burnage's advantage. After just three minutes their inside centre brushed off four tackles and scored an unconverted try.

Fifteen minutes later another fast hands move, exploiting the width again, allowed the Burnage threequarters to advance around the cover and ground under the posts for a converted try.

To rub salt into Bury's wounds, Burnage's stand-off launched a massive penalty from 45 metres out to leave Bury floundering some 15 points in arrears with only a quarter of the game gone.

Success at a line-out saw Harvey Leeming benefit from some good threequarter line play and after selling an outrageous dummy with Shaun Tippett as his foil, grounded under the sticks. Scrum half Glynn Smith, deputising for Ian Webb, easily converted.

Bury began to dominate and won a penalty with five minutes of the first half remaining. Smith knocked over an easy 25 metre kick. Having closed the gap to within five points, Bury proceeded to give two penalties away themselves and the Burnage out half stretched their lead to 11 points at the break.

Bury were fielding as good a threequarter line as they could manage and they were rewarded after 50 minutes when Darrell Stott outpaced the cover from 40 metres out and ran into the bottom, left-hand corner for an unconverted try.

Tippett then demonstrated the alternative method of attacking. Receiving the ball 15 metres out from the base of a scrum, he attacked the posts.

After being stopped by two players, he burst through the tackle and, dragging two more Burnage players in his wake, grounded the ball to the left of the posts. Smith converted without any trouble.

Bury advanced downfield again and Bernard Robinson gathered the ball 40 metres out and galloped some seven metres into the left hand corner to touch down.

The disputed placing of the kick and subsequent ruling that the attempt had not gone over the bar and between the posts did not impress the Bury contingent.

Defending a six-point lead, Bury made the mistake of relaxing slightly in the closing stages and the home side were able to score in the right-hand corner.

The Burnage stand-off hooked the ball wide and Bury ran out winners by a solitary point after recovering admirably from a 15-point deficit.

BURY: Shimmins, Whitehead, Smyth, Found, Kennedy, Westwood, Smithson, Blenkharn, Smith, Webb, Stott, Tippett, Leeming, Fielding, Robinson. Replacement: Boyd.

Bury travel to De La Salle in Salford tomorrow for their penultimate league game of the season.