Eton Manor vs. Rochford U15s, 24 October 2010

Eton Manor started brightly surging into the Rochford half, with good early work at the rucks they managed to open the scoring within the first few minutes, successfully converting to lead 7 – 0. Kyle caught the kick from the restart and having run past a couple of tackles, got the ball to Hayden Smith who ran strongly forward and when tackled just short of the line, managed to stretch forward to place the ball over the line to score EM 7 – R 5. From the restart both teams had chances to attack, before the ball was worked wide to Matthew Barnes on the wing, he cleverly kicked it forward and beat the three defenders to the ball to touch down and score EM 7 – R 10. Rochford managed to increase their lead when the ball was passed wide to Sean Prior who after a good run passed out to Matthew Barnes to score again from the wing EM 7 – R 15. The next Rochford try was the result of good work by the forwards, pushing a ruck over the try –line and managing to then work it back to Musa Yusuff to score EM 7 – R22. Kyle Bury managed to stretch the lead further catching an Eton Manor kick and running it back from about his own 22 yard line, leaving the half-time score EM7 – R 29.

Rochford were first to score in the second half with Perry and Ben rucking well to get the ball back for Matthew Barnes to score his third EM 7 – R 36. Eton Manor were being urged by their coaches to forget the score and just look to attempt to get some trys and with a few replacements managed to score a couple of try’s, to bring the score to EM 17- R36, before Musa hit back when he caught the ball from a line-out and ran through to score EM 17 – R 43. Eton Manor finished the better, with Rochford just wishing the game would end, Eton Manor managing to score twice more to bring the final score to a more respectable EM 29 – R 43.

This was a good team performance by Rochford to gain their first win over Eton Manor, the forwards worked really hard, with most of them getting one or more chances to run with the ball at the Eton Manor defence, and good passing among the backs created space out wide to score. Niall’s man of the match was Matthew Barnes, some very strong tackles and clever play on the wings enabling him to score three trys.