Match report Barbarians .v. Combined Services

 On a cool fresh evening at Brickfields the atmosphere was building up with the Royal Marine band out on the field of play entertaining with precision to the families , friends and followers of Rugby on the annual remembrance match . This game was neutral for an Albion supporter with close to 2700 in attendance I would hazard a guess . 

Several current and previous Plymouth Albion players  were involved in the evenings event with a 7-15pm kick off  . Current Plymouth Albion player Gareth evans representing Combined services , Ruairi cushion and Rhys oakley  and Tom harrison (Plymouth Albion ) represented the Barbarians , Tom was brought in to replace Cornish Pirates prop Alan Paver (ex Albion )due to a broken arm in a league game for Pirates on Sunday against Bedford . Cornish Pirates head coach Ian Davies was in charge of the Barbarians . Another Ex Albion player representing the Barbarians was Alex Davies ( London Welsh).
The game was under way with both sides trying to get the upper hand and after 15 minutes it was Combined Services Sam speight (Fiji) who ran his wing over half the length of pitch to get an unconverted try . Barbarians later replied with a converted try (C Hawkins)of their own 5 - 7 .  Another unconverted try (Laird) for Combined services brought the scoreboard to 10 – 7 . The Barbarians went on and scored two converted tries (Davis ,Ovens ) 10- 21.
Nearing half time Sam speight got his second try which was converted Services 17 – 21 Barbarians , half time score .
Second half was under way and after nearly 20 minutes played ,Sam speight ran from within his 22m line almost to the Barbarians 22m line where the forwards drove and a converted try (Koroyandi) changed the lead again to Combined Services 24 – 21 . Barbarians scored another converted try (Mayor ) with a clever chip over  Services flat defence to collect the ball and score 24 – 28 to the Barbarians . The clock was running down and with 10 minutes remaining Sam Speight ran near 70m to score his third try which was unconverted  29 – 28 to allow Combined services to again take  the lead . Replacement Foster was to end the match with an unconverted try and give Combined Services the win , final score 34 -28 in a thrilling game with the lead changing hands 6 times