This is what rugby is all about.
When Ambleside left Cumbria it almost felt tropical to the weather that awaited them in Scotland.
As both teams took the pitch the temperature plummeted, the rain lashed down and the wind began to howl.
However, it did not stop both teams going at it hammer and tongs and trying to throw the ball about and play fast expansive rugby.
Chances were missed on both sides and Annan used the wind to their advantage to relive pressure from their line whenever Ambleside crashed the ball up with the forwards or tried to spin the ball out wide.
The first score of the game was when Ambleside won a lone out on the opposition’s 22 and spun the ball through every pair of backs hands and created an overlap by bringing Larkin into the line from fullback for Edmondson to crash over in the corner.
Unfortunately, Cameron Penistone missed the conversion to leave the score at 0-5 to Ambleside.
Annan continued to use the wind well to build pressure and worked a nice move in the backs turning the ball back inside to one of the forwards supporting on the inside who duly obliged and crashed in under the posts, the conversion was made to make the score 7-5 to Annan.
The next phase of play saw the only negative from the day when Rory Smyth of Ambleside went over badly on his ankle at a ruck and had to leave the field with suspected ligament damage.
The half time whistle blew with the weather getting decidedly worse but at least Ambleside knew with the weather behind them in the second half they would have the advantage.
Annan pressed hard but Kaye, controlling the game from fly half for Ambleside relieved the pressure numerous times with massive kicks down field with the wind behind him.
The engine room of Ambleside’s pack Branwell and Baylis never stopped working tirelessly either in attack crashing the ball up or knocking back the opposition in defence.
Evans leading from the front for Ambleside inspired his team, on to ignore the atrocious weather conditions and asked them to keep pressing for another try to take the lead.
Out of nowhere Bayliss picked the ball up from the back of a ruck and charged through a small gap in the Annan defensive line to go over from thirty yards straight under the posts for an easy conversion for Penistone to make the score 7-12 to Ambleside.
Back came Annan, but with Akrigg having a solid game at inside center spotting the opposition beginning to tire he sensed an advantage and pressed for the winning try.
This came by slicing the Annan defence open time and time again until Baylis struck again like lightening and from a ruck five yards out took four defenders with him, yet again Penistone was off the mark and the score moved on to 7-17 to Ambleside.
The weather was now Baltic and when the referee pulled a calf muscle you knew it was extremely cold and wet beyond being funny.
With five minutes to go Matty Kaye poked home a cheeky little drop goal to put the game beyond doubt at 7-20.
The last play of the day was the restart from Annan that Kaye collected and booted right down the end of the field, as the Annan winger collected the ball, he was hit with a nasty high shot from Ambleside’s winger the baby-faced assassin Sam Kennelly playing on the opposite wing.
The Annan winger was lucky to still have his head on his shoulders and Kennelly was relieved to just receive a stern telling off from the ref and somehow stay on the pitch.
The final play of the game was a knock on from Annan and the referee blew up with Ambleside running out the winners 20-7 to claim their fifth win of the season.
In the club house that’s when the real fun started, Annan having come to Ambleside earlier in the year were magnificent hosts with great food, lots of drink, and brilliant banter and laughs, with both teams heading into town later on to remind us all what rugby is really about at the end of the day.
Both teams agreed to make the game annual fixture and Ambleside now look forward to welcoming Keswick to Galava Park next weekend for the final league game of the season, before beginning the last four weeks of the season all at home with some magnificent festival rugby to look forward to.
