Final Score 14 - 13

On a cold and breezy evening the RAF Vultures played their final warm up game before meeting the Army in this years Inter-Services Championships on 15 April at Aldershot.

Lincolnshire provided some stiff and physical opposition and the Vultures found themselves under early pressure, with a number of new potential IS ‘caps’.  A break by Paul Dix (RAFC Cranwell) saw the Vultures break into the Lincolnshire half and a bout of inter-passing between the forwards saw the ball end up in the hands of Mick Hounsell (Lossiemouth) who, with a number of side steps, crashed over the Lincolnshire line for the opening try, this was converted by Dix.

Lincolnshire responded with a number of bruising runs into the Vultures mid-field but the defence stood fast, until a flurry of activity between the forwards saw the Vultures No 8 Andy Yates (Leeming) being shown a yellow card.  Lincolnshire kicked the resulting penalty to make the half time score 7 points to 3.

The second half saw the Vultures once again under pressure in open play but they were certainly holding their own in the set-pieces.  These led to a try following a lazy side stepping run from Ash Booth (Brize Norton), converted by Paul Dix. Poor refereeing caused a lot of frustration for both sides and a number of incidents followed in which Lincolnshire lost two men to the sin bin at different times. The game started to peter out when Lincolnshire scored a well deserved try to make the score 14 points to 8.

 The Vultures picked up their game again and against the run of play gained another try, making the final score 14 points to 13 points.

This was a hard fought game in which the Vultures got a wake up call.  They stuck to the task, despite great pressure from the Lincolnshire side and ground out a winning result. The selectors and players alike learned a lot from this experience and will take the lesson learnt forward to the IS game against the Army on 15 April at Aldershot.