Eagle 20 Ruskin Park 25 DUE to the late cancellation of the home side's rearranged fixture league, Ruskin took this fixture at short notice.

With seven first XV regulars missing, they took the opportunity to give some of their promising youngsters a run out, and naturally, it took time for the side to settle down.

For the first half-hour, Eagle's much bigger pack was well on top, and put Ruskin under a lot of pressure.

During this time, they scored two tries, through Lee and Graham, and with Myers adding a conversion and a penalty, Eagle approached the interval with a healthy lead.

At this point, scrum-half Matthew left the field injured, and was replaced by Lightfoot, with Andy Kwasniki taking up an unaccustomed role on the wing.

However, on the stroke of half-time, Mousley reduced the arrears, with a well taken try in the corner.

Up the slope in the second half, Ruskin had much to do to achieve victory, but rocked Eagle with two tries in the first five minutes. Firstly, Jones with an amazing run through the whole defence, set up a try for Gary Smith, and then a delightful off-load in the tackle by Chris Pennington sent Ian Christian 40 yards to the posts.

Two conversions by Stu Fisher saw Ruskin leading for the first time.

Eagle set about the task of regaining their lead, with the pack once again to the fore, but Ruskin's defence held out over 10 minutes from time, when prop forward Hennessey crashed over for an unconverted try.

Ruskin found the energy to return to the attack, and as Eagle's discipline evaporated under pressure, they conceded two penalties for dissent, which Stu Fisher calmly lobbed over to give Ruskin a well deserved victory, their third in successive matches.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.