ROCHFORD LOSE OUT AGAIN

On a miserable rainy afternoon in Suffolk Rochford suffered another painful defeat to low lying Ipswich by 3 tries to 1 and have only themselves to blame .

Rochford began so well applying continual pressure through their big, strong pack for the first 20 minutes as Ipswich were unable to get out of their own half and struggled to contain them.

Even after two failed penalty attempts it seemed only a matter of time before they would score.

Eventually Rochford were successful in spite of the worsening weather which made the ball difficult to handle.

A sequence of quick driving ball through the forwards was recycled out to the backs where flanker Andrew Bevan was supporting and he took the ball and sped through splitting the Ipswich defence to score.

Rochford just needed to capitalise on the home side’s disarray but the home team upped their game and attacked the Rochford line.

Late in the half Ipswich were rewarded a penalty and they duly slotted over the kick to finish the half just 5 -3 down which they must have been quite happy with.

Straight from the second half kick off the home side kicked up field and a series of defensive errors saw the ball bobble about and an Ipswich player to pounce on it under the posts to score.

The try was converted and Ipswich were in the lead. They did not look back after that and just seemed to get stronger as Rochford failed to respond.

Two more tries followed by the home side and the game had gone as far as the Essex boys were concerned.

A late try by Tom Corbet after a forward drive over the line was no consolation and the final whistle blew to bring to an end a most unsatisfactory afternoon’s rugby from a Rochford viewpoint but Ipswich, like Holt last week, seemed quite pleased with the result.

There were some good individual performances especially in the forwards but overall it was a poor team effort and the side will need to go up a few gears next week against top of the table Diss at home.