Upminster vs. Rochford U15s, 16 January 2011

Charging down an attempted kick clear from a ruck, the ball broke kindly allowing Upminster to go wide, then cut back in to score under the posts Upminster 7 – Rochford 0. Rochford pressed from the restart, but their handling was not good, knocking on several times to lose possession, but got a break when Upminster took a quick line-out, with Musa Yussef stealing the ball to score Upminster 7 – Rochford 5. Rochford kept the pressure on Upminster aided in part by Upminster straying off-side and conceding several penalties, with Josh Lipscombe electing to kick for goal from one to give Rochford a narrow lead Upminster 7 – Rochford 8.

With Upminster being urged to aim for a good score whilst they had the slope advantage, they slipped up in taking a quick throw in, with Rochford players arriving quickly, the kick clear was charged down, then from a scrum in front of their own posts Upminster were again penalised for offside and Josh stepped up to score a second penalty Upminster 7 – Rochford 11. Upminster however managed to get retake the lead a clever kick over the top bounced nicely for the Upminster player and he ran on to score Upminster 14 – Rochford 11.

With Upminster having struggled to take any great advantage of the slope, it was now Rochford’s turn to see if they could make better use of it in the second half. Rochford were first to score when an Upminster kick was well caught by Sean Prior who worked it to Kyle Bury, Kyle dodged several tackles but was eventually tackled 5 or so yards short, but Rochford managed to retain the ball and create space for Jedd Donnelly to score Upminster 14 – Rochford 16. From the restart Upminster quickly won a penalty, they decided to kick for goal, this looked very ambitious, it was a long way out, uphill and against a strong wind from the side and fell short. Musa again managed to steal the ball at a line-out , allowing Hayden Smith to score Upminster 14 – Rochford 23.

Upminster were still struggling to impose themselves at rucks and Rochford exploited this to put them under pressure, with Jedd Donnelly scoring his second Upminster 14 – Rochford 28. With the game slipping slowly away Upminster began to lose their composure, they were slow to clear from a scrum close to their own line and were forced to touch the ball down, from the resulting 5yrd scrum Jackson charged forward but his attempt was held up, Hayden made sure from the resulting scrum scoring his second Upminster 14 – Rochford 35. The final try came again from an Upminster mistake, from a ten yard penalty they elected to run it, but were forced back and again had to touch down behind their own line, from the scrum Josh kicked through the crown of players and Clark Pickering darted through to dive on the ball, the game ending Upminster 14 – Rochford 40.