Baker bags 50th try as Rams rally to steal dramatic win

JAMES Baker admitted his match-winning 50th Rams try will live long in the memory following his side’s astonishing 35-33 fightback National Division 1 victory at Tonbridge Juddians, writes Richard Ashton.

The writing was well and truly on the wall as first-half doubles from home wings Nathan Earle and Tom Kendrick fired the home side into a 26-7 lead at the break, Max Hayman’s converted reply the only bright spot in a half where Rams were comprehensively outplayed.

Yet despite losing Oli Rhoads, Aaron Tull and Luke Graham to injury during a nightmare opening 40 minutes, the visitors somehow roused themselves and got back into the contest as Mike Cooke added to scores from Zach Clow and man-of-the-match Willo Bicknell.

A superb Mike Duda solo score, converted by Cooke, pushed Rams ahead before Earle’s hat-trick and the boot of Sam Evans made it 33-28.

But the visitors had the last and defining word, Baker celebrating his 452nd first-team appearance with a first try of the season before Cooke sealed the deal.

And the club’s most-capped player admitted: “It’s one of the best comebacks I’ve been a part of.

“It was sketchy at the start, we didn’t seem to have got off the bus, but we built into it and got a bit of flow going.

“Our talent and fitness shone through in the end when they were flagging.

“It was a gutsy performance, but I wish we didn’t have to do it the way we did.” Commenting on how his side turned things around, he added: “We all complain about Phil (Hoy, head of strength and conditioning), but it goes to show he knows what he’s doing and at the very end, we were firing on all cylinders. It’s paying off.

“At half-time we didn’t get too emotional. As forwards we went through what had gone well, what we needed to do better in the second half — which was mainly to be more clinical — and we believed we could come back. We just had to go out and give it all we had.”

Baker’s storied career began with a first-team debut in 2003, and after reaching his half century of tries, he beamed: “At the moment it’s one of my best memories.

“I’ve been playing for so long and those tries have been spread out over a large amount of time — it’s hard to remember all of them — but this feeling of winning at the end will last a while.”

Having suffered numerous narrow defeats in the past two months, the veteran — one of only three players older than 30 in the matchday 20 — believes victory can give the youthful squad a huge boost moving forward.

He ended: “We made it hard for ourselves, but it’s a hugely important win. We’d had two losses and if we’d gone down again it could have been a slippery slope, but now we have to build on it.”

Rams host Leeds Tykes on Saturday, kick-off 3pm.