Rochford U16s vs. Eton Manor, Essex League 1, 9th October 2011

Eton Manor started brightly, and managed to keep Rochford primarily in their own half for the first 20 minutes, scoring 2 penalties in the process, Rochford missing a penalty between these two kicks. From the restart Mussa Yussuf caused problems chasing the kick, and managed to steal the ball ending with a ruck beneath the post. Rather than try to force their way over, Rochford worked it back, Josh Lipscombe going blind to create an overlap, then passing to Louie Marshall with the last defender committed, Josh Lipscombe converting to put Rochford in the lead for the first time. Gaining confidence from the try, Josh kicked a penalty soon afterwards, awarded for an Eton Manor player attempting a squeeze ball manoeuvre. Then from an attacking scrum, Mussa Yussuf picked up the ball from the back of the scrum, and made some ground, before passing to Ben Nock to score out wide. A difficult kick for Josh Lipscombe saw him hit the post, the half ending R15-EM6.

The second half saw an Eton Manor fight back, attempting to recover the lead, however Mussa scored from close in, when Rochford won a scrum against the head, Josh again converting. Rochford continued their assault, working the ball wide to Sean Prior who was tackled into touch, the referee had however been playing advantage, so called play back for a close in penalty. In the confusion Rochford made the most of a quickly taken touch penalty for Josh to score. A few minutes later some good interpassing between Sean Prior and Clark Pickering, saw Clark ground the ball, the final pass however had been forward. The resulting scrum collapsed, with one of the Eton Manor players unfortunately being injured, full time was therefore called to enable him to get treatment.

I was later informed the injury was whiplash, so wish the player a full and speedy recovery.