On a wet and windswept Bowdon pitch, the Tigers came alight in the first of three fearsome encounters at Clay Lane.

Game 1 saw the Tigers winning the toss and Captain Josh deciding to take the game to a tall Bowdon side. From the off, it was obvious that the recent training sessions had rubbed off on the lads as Josh and Bill held their shape out wide totally nullifying Bowdon's nippy back line. This gave the Tigers the upper hand and they were soon into their stride, building a healthy 1-3 lead by tagging well defensively and running the lines to support the ball carriers when attacking. This was really shown as Thomas went over to score in his first competitive rugby match. At half time the Tigers came in 3-5 to the good, a lead that was only to grow in the second half. The second half saw the arrival of Luke, Eddie and Ollie and they added even more power to the superior Tigers. Again, the Tigers stayed out wide and didn't drift in at the restart and so were able to keep taking the tags and getting turnover ball. The final whistle couldn't come soon enough for Bowdon with the Tigers victorious, 4-8.

Game 2 was a very different affair with The Tigers being swept away on a tide of complacency to find themselves down 4-2 at half time. A shell shocked Coach John gave the pep talk of all pep talks and at last the Tigers roared into life after the restart. Josh, carrying a hand injury from the first game, came on and made an immediate impact, going over for his third of the day and linking well with both Will and Eddie to finally bring parity to a game that was most definitely a tale of two halves, finishing 5-5 at the end.

Game 3 was a hurried affair with the Tigers and Bowdon both guilty of knocking on and dropping passes. In this game, both Mat and Louis came to the fore with great running onto the ball to go over for their first tries of the day. By half time the Tigers had fought for a healthy 1-3 lead, but all was to crumble in the second half as the Tigers tired and their shape got loose. This gave Bowdon the chance to press hard and their endeavours were rewarded with two late tries to see the game levelled 3-3 on the final play of the match.

A great day for entertaining rugby. Today we witnessed a definite step change in the Tigers defensive strategy, strong tagging with players not all following the ball and drifting in. The ball handling of all players was terrific and the supporting lines that the team ran were worthy of a much older age group.Well done to one and all.

The mighty Tigers today were (tries in brackets), Ollie (1), Eddie (2), Josh (4), Thomas (1), Luke (2), Louis (1), Matty (1), Alex (2), William (1), Bill (1).