A Learning Curve

The under 13’s embarked on their first away game of the season at Maldon, for a friendly arranged at short notice. We arrived with virtually a full squad at Drapers Lane for a 10.30 kick off, with one eye on the sky after the weather reports were predicting heavy rain.

We were well received by our hosts, though were surprised by the shortened length of the pitch, but of course it is the same for both sides.

Maldon started strongly and managed to gain an early lead, mainly due to their strength at the scrum and rucks, however, Rochford were soon back on terms courtesy of a strong run from Luke Pindani, and were then able to gain a foothold in the game through some strong tackling from Luca Davis and one of the men of the match, Max Pitkin. Some resolute defending from the Rochford forwards preventing a Maldon try on our goal line. Rochford then moved into the ascendancy, courtesy of a run from deep from Kieran Butler and then two typically powerful tries from Luke P to lead 4-1 lead, though as expected based on previous games between the two sides, Maldon roared back and notched two tries before half time, so Rochford went into the interval with a narrow lead of 4-3. It could have been even if the Maldon winger hadn’t dropped the ball, due to excellent tracking back by Harrison Lacey.

Rochford took the opportunity to rotate the substitute bench to ensure all the attendees had good game time, and Maldon sensing a chance to continue their strong end to the first half while the new lineup settled in, attacked the wings and quickly took the score to 6-4 in their favour. Rochford dug in with the other man of the match, Connor providing a strong backbone to the team, and kept probing at the Maldon defence with strong runs from Christian Walton, Jack Dunn, Daniel Palmer and Brendan Shead, but were unable to breach the line to add to the score.

Maldon were then able to add a further three tries, and completed a second half shut out for Rochford.

A slightly disappointing result of 9-4 in Maldon's but a valuable exercise for the squad, excellently refereed, after which the boys tucked into an excellent chicken curry followed by cake! We have an early chance to level the scores, as we return in a month's time for a league game.

Another away game next week, and hopefully a chance to get back to winning ways at Braintree.

Match report by Graham Butler