Colchester vs. Rochford Under 16s, 18 September 2011
With both sides losing players to county and other commitments in the subsequent days, this would be a good opportunity for the squad players to shine for at least 40 minutes of the game.
The Rochford backs started poorly, with little cohesion, knocking on several times in defence and hence putting themselves under extra pressure. They however still managed to thwart Colchester’s attacks for the first 20 minutes. Louie Marshall managed to hit back, intercepting a Colchester pass on his own 22 and sprinting clear to score, Ben Williamson converting C5-R7. Two further Colchester tries meant they went off at half-time leading C15-R7.
Both sides made several changes during the break, subbing on those who had not played a part so far, including Matthew Beattie making his Rochford debut. The changes seemed to go in Rochford’s favour, a good run by Ben Williamson allowed Sean Prior to score with Matthew Barnes taking over the kicking C15-R14.Then next try came after several phases of play, before Perry Livingstone charged through several tackles to score C15-R19. Perry was then involved in the next two trys, a good run creating space for Kyle Bury to score, and some good inter-passing with Clark Pickering led to his second C 15-R33. Rochford then made their one mistake of an otherwise perfect half, a poor kick from 5 yards out, was charged down, going over the try line for an easy touchdown C22-R33.
With 5 minutes remaining, Cameron Pitt scored from a Colchester line-out, soon followed by a Rochford penalty 5 yards out for going over the top at a ruck. Clark Pickering, one of the smaller players on the pitch, took a quick touch penalty and handed off several surprised Colchester players retreating to their try line, looking the wrong way. The game therefore ended C22-R45.
Rochford although looking disjointed for the first forty minutes, managed to prevent Colchester building too big a lead, and reaped the benefits in the second half, especially when given confidence by Perry Livingstone, thundering at the Colchester defence and causing them all kinds of problems. The game was also a good opportunity of several of the players to try their hand in different positions, covering for the missing players.
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