During last week's 'CricketForce' event, attended by Vikram Solanki, Ross Rugby Club made a very generous donation of £1000.00 to the Cricket Club. It is very nice to see the two totally different sports associations helping one another! Pictured below is David Cooke, President of the Rugby Club handing over the cheque to Steve Earle, Chairman of Ross Cricket Club. To the left is Vikram Solanki and to the right, Martyn Pocknell, Chairman of the Rugby Club.

Ross Rugby Club 2nds beat Westbury 3rds - see below the photo . . .

On a fine, sunny Sunday afternoon, Ross RFC 2nd XV played Westbury 3rds in the quarter finals of the Forest of Dean Miner Cup. With a mixture of youth and experience, the match resulted in a hard fought victory to Ross by 15 - 8.

Cheered on by a large crowd the forwards started to dominate the scrums and line outs which enabled scrum half Gareth Holdworth to dictate play with evergreen Owen James controlling the same from fly half. Ross took the lead after twenty minutes with a well struck penalty by James, only for Westbury to strike back with an unconverted try. The second half saw Westbury increase their lead with a penalty. Ross hit back with a fine try by James, who converted. The games was sealed by Westbury giving away a penalty ten yards out. Captain, Richard James opted for a tap move and was driven over by the rest of his forwards.

The semi-final now looms with Drybrook, which will be another home game. Man of the match went to captain Richard James, who was playing his first game for three months after going through the experience of becoming a parent.

Martyn Pocknell

Above. I realize that this is not the first time this year I have posted a photograph of the robin - Erithacus rubecula on Nature Watch but I thought this made quite a nice picture. I took it on Sunday morning whilst enjoying a barbecue and watching the wildlife at the home of some friends who live at Symonds Yat West.

The above photograph makes nice desktop wallpaper, so if you would like it as your desktop background, please click the download link, wait until the 1024 x 768 pixel version has fully downloaded in a separate window and then right click the image. If you are using Internet Explorer, choose the option, 'set as background' or if you are using Mozilla Firefox or Netscape, choose the option 'set as wallpaper'. Close the window afterwards. Click here to download (130 KBytes).

Below. A buzzard - Buteo buteo, soars high over the River Wye at Symonds Yat. The buzzard can be easily distinguished from other species of hawk by its size. The buzzard's wing span may vary between forty eight and sixty inches, with a body length of around twenty inches. It has a brown plumage, with lighter markings beneath.