Rochford Harts Back on Track

The Harts managed to put last weeks disappointing defeat to Southend behind them this week to record a good win away at Chelmsford. Playing down the slope in the first half Rochford knew they needed to put some points on the board to put distance between themselves and Chelmsford before halftime as they knew they would be up against it in the second half going uphill and into the wind. In what proved to be a much better start for Rochford than in recent weeks they managed to soak up the pressure from a quick start by the home side and when they secured the ball it was all one way traffic.

However Rochford suffered a blow in the first few minutes losing their tight head Mike Marks in the opening minutes of the game with a nasty cut above the eye caused by a wayward knee. Marks was replaced by young prop Rob Cook, who despite only entering his second season of Rugby had an excellent game and managed to give a text book lesson to the veteran Chelmsford loose-head who just couldn’t get to grips with Cooks strong scrummaging all game.

After Rochford had settled down from the substitution the pack began to turn over the ball at the ruck with ease and returning Captain Chipper decided to put the lads on the front foot with some long kicks deep into the Chelmsford half. After some sustained pressure and excellent approach play Rochford managed to out number the defence and Flyhalf Head opened the scoring when he found himself 5 yards from the line without any defence to stop him, Chelmsford 0 – 5 Rochford.

The opening score seemed to energised the boys from Magnolia Road and they began to play some excellent open running rugby from 1 to 15 all getting involved. The next score come from a lineout on the Chelmsford 10 metre line, the ball was spun wide in a text book training ground move that left the Chelmsford defence in pieces and for Scott Gledhill to speed over the line for his first try of the afternoon converted by Chipper, Chelmsford 0 – 12 Rochford. Rochford then unfortunately lost their hard running number 8 Churton to a knee injury to be replaced by O’Farrell but this didn’t seem to effect the way the lads were playing and from again some fine running rugby Pickering managed to evade a number of tacklers to go crash over the line again converted by Chipper, Half-Time Chelmsford 0 – 19 Rochford.

Defence was the name of the game in the second half, Chelmsford who know their pitch well put the ball deep into the Rochford half and camped out 5 metres from the try line keeping on the pressure with a continuous flow of line outs and scrums, however it was the massive defensive effort from the Magnolia Road outfit that really won the game, never allowing Chelmsford to build momentum and were continually turning over the ball at the ruck and managing to clear the lines. After 20 odd minutes off sustained pressure Rochford managed to get their hands on the ball through the backs and some excellent breaks through the midfield managed to set Stemp off down the left wing to outpace the cover defence and cross the line for his first try of the season which was once again excellently converted by Chipper, Chelmsford 0 – 26 Rochford.

The last score of the game came from another piece of excellent defensive work, the Rochford pack managed to turn over the ball at a ruck and Gledhill got his hands on the ball and from 70 yards out raced up field outpacing the entire Chelmsford back line to score just to the right of the posts for Chipper to easily convert again, Final Score Chelmsford 0 – 33 Rochford. An excellent game from the boys in black who are now building what is turning out to be a very good side with strength in depth and some very talented players that have come through from the colts last year as well as the inclusions of Bacon, Cook and O’Farrell who have developed well over the summer under the colts coaches and are looking good at senior level so early on in the season.