Not the best advertisement for the game we love, but such is life and we'll take the points and move onto next week. In a game where both sides actually wanted to play rugby, the execution of both sides left something to be desired. The penalty count against both sides was unbelievable, we conceded nine in the first half alone, Aldwinians weren't that far behind us, everytime we hit a ruck or defended one we gave away a penalty and when that happens you can't gain any momentum, Aldwinians fly half pinned us in our own half at every opportunity and we gave him plenty of opportunities.

Having all the territory it was only a matter of time before Aldwinians put some points on the board, a try after a driving maul and a penalty (believe it or not) gave our opposition a 8 nil halftime lead.

After a few home truths at the break, I actually thought our mind set might change as the second half started (how wrong can you be). Three minutes after the restart, we find ourselves under pressure again inside our twenty two, yet another penalty, a kick to the corner, trapped on our five metre, tell you what, let's give a penalty away and get a player sin binned (magic boys), somehow we dug deep and survived.

Credit to the boys, who for whatever reason, seemed to have upset the referee, we ground out a result, Ben Sadler had his best game for the Ducks and as Aldwinians lads said after the game "your ten kicked us to death", right areas at the right time. A successful penalty got us back in the game 8 - 3. The inspired substitutions by the manager, or the introduction of Dylan O'Dowd and Cal Graham seemed to fire the lads up. The bizarre sin binning of Aldwinians fly half after a dubious tackle by Ben didn't help our opposition. A try from Matt Brookes and a successful conversions gave us a 10 - 8 victory.

Duck of the Day went to Tyler, scrummaged well, big carries, big tackles and a nuisance all day to the opposition, glad to have him back. Now when you are conceding penalties at a massive rate of knots and there's a minor altercation on the pitch, what you don't need is a player on the sideline getting involved, so to this end, there could only possibly be one Diffy Duck, Oatesy keep of the pitch, you lucky lad.

A game we won in a PENALTY shootout, it certainly felt that way.

Mother Duck.