Richard Owens braved the weather on Friday night to cover the CIYMS v Cooke Championship One game at Belmont.

CI will wonder how they were 12 points behind at the break after a dominant first half where they had nearly all the possession and territory.

The home team were parked in Cooke’s half but spirited defence kept them out and it was against this run of play that Cooke burst out of their own 22 to sprint the length of the pitch and dot down under the posts. Extras added and then we were back in Cooke’s 22 where an infringement from the visitors gave CI 3 points.

Conditions rapidly deteriorated from grim to horrendous as the heavens dumped a deluge of water on the players, the greasy ball almost impossible to hang on to.

On the half hour Cooke picked a gap in the CI line and squeezed through to push their score on by 5 with their second try, unconverted. A further penalty from Cooke was the final act in this half, score 15-3.

The break was mercifully short as nobody wanted to be out in the monsoon any longer than necessary.

Cooke were over the line again for a third try within 5 minutes of the restart and this was the tale of the second half with a further two tries being added to take them to 39-3.

Just as the rain eased off CI’s pack finally got some forward momentum and got a late try to finish off the game. Final score 39-8

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