A DOMINANT performance from St Neots U12s against Ely saw them secure victory in the two games played at The Common. Ely found that they were quickly under pressure and conceded an early penalty. The St Neots forwards of Adam Haywood, Amber King, Conner

A DOMINANT performance from St Neots U12s against Ely saw them secure victory in the two games played at The Common.

Ely found that they were quickly under pressure and conceded an early penalty. The St Neots forwards of Adam Haywood, Amber King, Conner Law, George Peacock, Alex Cronin and Adam Williams were solid and it wasn't long before St Neots scored through Ben Clare.

Another St Neots penalty 10 metres out was quickly taken by Cameron Brown, who dived through for the score and Ben Tyler was quick to add to this with a direct and powerful run for a try. St Neots piled on more pressure and an Alex Purdon offload released Clare for his second try.

After a slow start to the second half, St Neots stepped up a gear and from a penalty Jon Thomson went over to score on the wing.

The next score came from a fantastic maul which left George Peacock free to dive over the line. Ely scored a consolation try before the final whistle but with Williams converting five of the six St Neots' tries it left the Saints with a healthy 40-7 win.

In the second game Saints took the honours 21-7 thanks to tries from Ben Clare, Callum Austen and Amber King with conversions coming from the boots of Adam Williams and Ben Tyler.

The St Neots man of the match was Callum Austen after his hard work and superb try.

Elsewhere, St Ives U15s were looking to continue their recent good form at Saffron Walden.

The forwards, through Jack Bainbridge, Aden Fry, Ryan Szembel and Tom Mitcham competed well but it needed solid tackling from Robert Langdown and Ollie Burrows in the centre to keep Walden at bay.

The pressure finally told when, just before the break, the home side crossed for a converted try.

St Ives, with changes in the back line of Jonny Williams at full back and Stuart Mitcham in the centre, could not find a way through.

Several Walden kicks were well gathered by Max Smith and Harris Christison and eventually second row forward Paul Littlechild was driven over the line by Dom Edwards and Rory MacLean to score a deserved try. Tom Whiteside kept his cool to level the scores at 7-7 with the conversion.

A last kick of the match denied St Ives U17s a share of the spoils against national under-17 semi-finalists Oundle.

Bulls were quickly off the mark and led 7-0 thanks to Matt Nice, who broke the Oundle tackle line to score a fine try, converted by Dan Breed.

Oundle fought back strongly but could not breach the St Ives defence, led by the tireless Dan Hyde, ably supported by flankers Simon Dunn and David Baker.

It was Oundle that hit the ground running at the start of the second half and they levelled within minutes with a gift try.

St Ives held their own for the rest of the match but a moment of madness gave Oundle a penalty for a late tackle and the winning kick.