On windy days, rugby fans, the wise heads on the sidelines, often talk about "how much the wind is worth."

Well, Saturday was a windy day and one thing we proved was that it was a wind that was certainly worth more than seven points. Because seven points were all, we scored with the wind behind us in the first half against Silverdale, who then turned around in the second half and ran up 16 against us.

To be fair, the weather in the first half was appallingly bad for a while as the near-gale-force wind blew the rain close to horizontal. Fingers got cold, the ball drifted just out of reach and both the grass and the ball got slippery. That meant plenty of scrums and their scrum went better than our scrum. Back football is not what the backs want at any time, and never on a day like that.

So, despite a wealth of possession and playing pretty much the full half in Silverdale territory, the only score was a try to Potroz Rimoni, close enough to the posts to make Gus Mowat's conversion a formality (or so it looked from the grandstand).

There were other opportunities, but errors, often caused by the conditions but sometimes by overexcitement, meant the vital pass was dropped or went to ground, and there was nothing to show for all that effort.

The halftime team talk was all about the tactics of playing into the wind, but before we had a chance to really put that into practice, Silverdale hit the lead with a penalty and a converted try.

Then the slog began, the forwards grinding their way upfield, the backs probing for gaps, but they just didn't open up or if they did, another small error would bring the movement to an end.

Silverdale added another penalty for a 13-7 lead. A converted try would do the trick but there was no way through and every time we turned it over, Silverdale used the wind to get a long way downfield, so the slog back into the wind was a long one.

A final penalty inside the last ten minutes put the game out of reach and the final whistle saw Silverdale ahead 16-7. Quite simply, they played better with the wind than we did.