Stunned by YM's passion, ferocity and ability.

A fitter, more aggressive and better drilled team descended on Southwold in the Plate Final on Sunday. We were expecting a hard game and a win would would have been a major upset, but to be beaten by the margin we were was disheartening for all involved. The extremely talented YM back row dominated the game. Despite a higher tackle count than usual and some big hits from the usual suspects, the sheer number of phases and driving runs were inevitably going to penetrate our defences who were clearly tiring after consuming too many mince pies.

We did however dominate the scrums winning all our ball and getting a couple against the head. Unfortunately their tenacious and gobby scrum half was so quickly around (surprising quick some observed!) that he scuppered any clean ball. Even when Josh did get the ball out to the backs, YM's blitz defence was up so quick (legally) that the ball rarely got further than our inside centre.

Despite being out-classed in most areas the boys, to their credit, remained intent on getting some consolation which finally came when Stan scrambled over the line in the second half. This brought the biggest cheer of day from the patient and supportive home crowd. There could have been two other tries but for a couple of errors which were cruelly exploited by YM who duly turned over the ball and scored at the other end.

We didn't lose the match, YM won it. They did it with undoubted style and resolute commitment and by a considerably higher margin than we expected. We have a lot of work to do to get in to the top group in Suffolk but despite our small squad size there is great team spirit and much potential to develop. Two critical ingredients. Maybe this is knock what we needed. Remember what happened in our second Holt fixture last season?

The Man of the Match was shared by Jack FS and Christian whose commitment around the park was outstanding.

ps. We did win the boat race as one of YM's drinkers was blatantly offside!