If the play was desperate before, it became even more so now.
Each member of either team played as if upon him alone depended the issue of the match.

Again and again Grey, Anderson, Gordon, and their redoubtable phalanx of dishevelled hard-breathing Scots broke away with the ball; but as often the English quarter and half-backs, by their superior speed, more than made up for the weakness of their forwards, and carried the struggle back into the enemy's ground.

Two or three time Evans, the long-kicker, who was credited with the power of reaching the goal from almost any part of the ground, got hold of the ball, but each time before he could kick he was charged by some one of his adversaries.

At last, however, his chance came.

The ball trickled out of a maul into the hands of Buller, who at once turned and threw it to the half-back behind him.