A GREAT WAY TO START A NEW YEAR

This was the ideal way to start the New Year campaign with a well deserved victory in the wet and mud against their Norfolk rivals.

Especially so as Rochford had to fight back after going down 12 points in quick succession as Norwich took full advantage of some lapse in the home team’s play to score two tries, one of which was converted.

From the start Rochford showed that they had the power and drive up front but just could not get their act together as an outfit and also their lineout was not performing to its usual standard.

The game changed very late in the first half as Rochford’s forwards powered their way up to the Norwich line and just stayed there applying enormous pressure through their set scrum and eventually it paid off as impressive no.8 Scott Horsburgh dived over to reduce the margin to 12-5 at the break.

The second half was an entirely different affair as the boys in black took Norwich apart up front in both set scrum, loose and just as importantly the lineout.

Norwich’s cause was not helped by them falling foul of the referee during the afternoon as they collected a total of five yellow cards and a great deal of that was a result of pressure Rochford put them under.

From a loose maul near their opponent’s line Rochford drove over for Scott Horsburgh, once again, to emerge triumphant with another try.

Next up was the ever elusive scrum half Ricki Gould who, benefiting from the dominant scrum, ran in for a third try and take his side into the lead at 15 -12.

The match was still tight and a tiring Norwich were still determined to take the game to the home team but some quite superb aggressive defensive tackling from Rochford knocked them back time and again.

The icing on the cake came late in this absorbing, if not spectacular, contest considering the conditions.

Influential stand-off Matt Stewart took possession deep in his own territory and sent a beautifully flight high ball downfield for wing Matthew White to chase.

He did so with gusto and out ran the defence to get the touch down and secure a try bonus point for the team.

A great second half performance, especially from the forwards where Scott Wheeler, Max Bacon, Tom Corbet, Horsburgh and all showed the controlled aggression that is needed and played the conditions extremely well.

More importantly this was a terrific team performance which will do the players confidence no harm at all and coach Michael Guess was full of praise for his team’s performance.

Well done lads and keep up this standard of play against the difficult away fixtures of Campion and Romford coming up over the next two weeks.