A VERY PLEASING RESULT

(report by Graham Pratt)

Yet another Saturday of contrasting weather with one minute driving wind and pouring rain, then bright sunshine and again rain and wind. Difficult conditions to play good rugby in, together with a long journey and a wet pitch but Rochford overcame all this with an impressive victory.

After surprisingly losing to the Stags earlier in the season and surrendering a three year home run, the team had a score to settle and a need to balance the books. They did this in style with an awesome display of power rugby that CS Stags struggled against and finally succumbed to. The home side are not a bad outfit and have pace and skill in their backs, but it was not a day for fast, open rugby and Rochford knew that.

It was a day when their strength and commitment paid dividends; they started as they finished with driving in the loose and tremendous support play from both forwards and backs. Kicking off into a gale of driving rain the team played controlled and powerful rugby and were soon rewarded. The impressive number eight Chris Shields opened the scoring with a powerful drive to the try line and the immaculate Cameron Greenhall slotted over the first of his six conversions of the afternoon.

Stags came back and applied some sustained pressure of their own but Rochford’s excellent defence kept them at bay. One of these attacks broke down and full back Mark Billings gathered the ball and out-ran the opposition from deep in his own half to score under the posts and Greenhall converted.

Again the home side attacked out wide and scored an unconverted try but that was as good as it got for the Stags as fiery hooker Adam Ferrier used his power to drive over with a little help from the rest of the pack to score and for Cameron Greenhall to slot over the conversion.

In spite of the early bad weather at the start of the game most of the first half was played in bright sunshine and Rochford had played in the same way. A 21 – 5 first half lead was a good platform for further points to come and so it turned out. After some good attacking play by Stags, Rochford broke away and forced their way back upfield with the wind behind them and more impressive forward play saw big prop Tod Bailey drove over for a converted try.

The set scrum had been fairly even, but Rochford edged the line-out where Sam Fombo was in good form. But the big difference was Rochford’s total dominance in the loose where they drove their opposition back and made yards every time they had the ball. Adam Ferrier scored his second try of the afternoon and with the Greenhall conversion, took the lead to 35 – 5. The weather again deteriorated but not the rugby as scrum half Ricki Gould scored an excellent converted try, as he finished off a forward break near the Stags try line to ground under the posts.

The icing on the cake was applied by second row Lewis Brunger, when he forced his way across the line to score.

Congratulations to the team on an excellent and professional performance against the odds and to put the previous game behind them.

A two week break now, before hosting Dorking on 21st March when they hope to continue their challenge for the league title.

Team:- Bailey, Ferrier, Bevans-Royston, Brunger, Fombo. Kellard, Strachan, Shields, Gould, Greenhall, Cleare, Dudman, Gay, Brambley, Billings

Subs:- Guess, Douglas, Meads