AEI made light of the boggy conditions and, playing with the slope in the first half, their pack dominated the scrums. AEI took first blood when Mark McDonough took a quick penalty close to the Claverdon line and was ferociously driven over to score by Tom King. After further wallowing in the mud, AEI went ahead when scrum half Gary Storer bravely dived between Martin Neal’s legs to score a pushover try.
Despite AEI’s continued pack dominance in the second half, Claverdon came back into the game. First a well worked backs move game them a try, then a mistake by AEI fullback Nathan Yeung gifted them the levelling score. Mark McDonough had a last minute penalty to win the match for AEI but it sailed agonisingly wide.