A Positive Start to 2019

This game was originally scheduled to be at home, but due to Magnolia Road being over-subscribed the match was rearranged to take place at Roding Lane.

We arrived in good time on a cool but dry morning, and congregated on the bottom pitch, finally joined by Luca!

Wanstead looked to be an imposing team, especially as we had heard that they had recently beaten local rivals Eton Manor, so we knew it would be key that we started strongly.

Rochford kicked to start and dominated the scrum from the start with the pack working well together and were soon in the ascendancy with an early strike from Luke P, which was soon doubled with some great movement of the ball across the pitch before Luke P touched down in the corner.

Wanstead came back into the game, and pressed the Rochford line and reduced the deficit when a missed pass from Rochford allowed Wanstead to ground the ball.

Rochford kept moving the ball across the pitch well and Billy and Harry were unlucky not to break through before the two try lead was restored with some good interplay in the middle of the park, with Max feeding Kieran to score. We then extended the lead with Luke P receiving the ball and running virtually the whole length of the pitch.

Straight from the kick off, Barnaby caught the ball and made great inroads, before passing to Kieran who kicked across the pitch for Max to collect and score. Again, straight from the kick off, Rochford returned the ball to score a try via a great run from Christian.

There was still time for Rochford to score again before half time with a well worked try completed by Max, so we headed into the interval 35-5 with all players contributing to a good first half performance.

Wanstead came out strongly in the second half but some resolute Rochford defending kept the score at 7 tries to 1 before gradually Rochford reasserted themselves and after some good play between Sam and Max, the ball ended up with Luca to extend the lead.

Rochford kept the pressure on with Ethan in particular making some great runs and was unlucky not to score, though unselfishly passed to Kieran to take the Rochford try count to 9.

After a weaving run from Freddie, Luca took the Rochford tally into double figures but while we were re-organising after some substitutions the Wanstead winger made a great run to score in the corner. He was later nominated as their man of the match by Rochford.

The scoring was concluded when after a quickly taken restart by Kieran, Luca received the ball and completed his hat-trick. At this point, the referee decided to halt proceedings.

Overall a good day in East London, played in good spirit, excellently refereed and special thanks to our hosts after the mid-week change of venue. A return to the cup competition next week with a tough home match against Brentwood.

Man of the match nominated by Wanstead, Freddie White

Final Score: Wanstead 10 – Rochford 55

Tries
Luke P and Luca 3 each, Max and Kieran 2 each and 1 for Christian.