Match report courtesy of the

Saturday 9th February 2008

LIFE after Simon Edwards is not going to be easy, well, at least not on the evidence of this performance. Maids, who had hoped to be moving clear of relegation, were dragged back into the mire thanks to a hiding at Bournemouth on Saturday.

Maids, who were for once able to select from almost a full-strength squad, were outgunned all over the field. Quite simply they were second best for almost all of the 80 minutes.

For the first three minutes Maids must have thought it would be their day in the sun. Nobody was missing Edwards' influence as Alex Gallina scorched over the line following a neat break by Greg Riley and Simon Carter. Abrahams missed the conversion but Maids were 5-0 ahead. Quite simply that was as good as it got for Maids.

For the remaining 77 minutes they were overawed, boys against men. Their lead was shortlived, after 10 minutes and following a free-kick which was awarded after Gareth Edwards, the scrum-half, was adjudged to have fed the ball into the scrum, captain Chris Hughes was driven over from five metres. James Flynn added the conversion and Bournemouth led 7-5.

It got worse for Maids seven minutes later, a series of missed tackles allowed Sam Hardcastle to break free deep in his own territory, he was across the half way line before Simon Swadling could catch him at which point he offloaded to James Payne who scored under the posts. Flynn made no mistake with the conversion and suddenly Maids trailed 14-5 only 17 minutes into the game.

Further scores from Hardcastle, Domenick Davies, and Flynn put Bournemouth into a comfortable 26-5 lead at half-time.

Any thoughts Maids might have had of a second half comeback were snuffed out within minutes of the restart. Scott Chislett going across wide on the left to make it 31-5. Even the sin-binning of the Bournemouth captain Hughes for persistent infringements failed to make any difference. Indeed Joe Frost made a mockery of the numbers by scoring to actually extend Bournemouth's lead.

The procession continued with further scores from Cawley, Hardcastle and Flynn, and Bournemouth ran out convincing 53-5 winners.

Bournemouth:
Davies, Frost (Edwards 65) Gray, Payne, Flynn, Chislett, Hardcastle, Siaki (Burns 56), Ulu, Manning, Kenny (Cawley 65), Seward; Hughes, Crombie, Kiely.

Maidenhead:
Swadling, Cripps (MacDonald), Abrahams, Hammond, Mackay, Ruddick, Edwards, O¹Bryne (Blackwell), Barber, Hadfield, Babich, Mueller, Gallina, Parkhouse (Knox), Riley.