Shipston Oldies 24pts, Harbury Vets 15 THE aim to field two teams of over 40s wasn't quite fulfilled on the night due to the extreme cold and the very hard pitch but these two sides still managed to produce a competitive match for the Dave Andrews Cup.

Harbury's longest serving active player - now 64 - not only played for his club on the night but still had the mobility to climb on to the tables in the clubhouse afterwards to 'do his piece"!

The match itself was a somewhat disjointed affair especially during the early stages with Harbury not gelling well together despite plenty of possession.

Simon Prince opened the scoring for the home side with a nice cut back from centre with the wiry John Alexander kicking through to follow-up and score the second home try. Mick Pyne stroked the conversions high into the cold night sky.

The second half belonged largely to Harbury who took advantage of some slightly edgy Shipston play to score an outstanding try, an individual charge down score and benefit from a series of deflections from misplaced kicks one of which led to a third score.

With the game evenly poised it was left to the wise old head of Shipston's own longest serving stalwart, Rob Hawkins, to put the Mayo men back in front in the darkest corner of the ground after prop Mark Ashworth had seized on a wayward clearance kick.

Darryl Hunter then twisted over from close-range near the final whistle to round off a most enjoyable evening.

Special mention should be made of winger Taff Rhodes who tackled and covered like a colt all night and thanks to Mark Easton for all his work in helping assemble the visiting side.