Southwold put up brave fight against Colchester

SOUTHWOLD U15’s 0 vs COLCHESTER U15’s 30

A breezy welcome for Colchester this weekend in the first group game in the Suffolk Cup. Last year this fixture was no contest as Colchester easily ran away with the game, but Wold were hoping for a better result this season. As has been said before, Southwold U15’s are by no stretch of the imagination a ‘large’ team, with the size of those players in the squad. Colchester on the other hand have the pick of many County, Eastern County and Saints academy players. But for all those parents that were there to watch this fixture, they will no doubt have gone away impressed by the shear determination of the Southwold boys and the progress that they have made since last season.

As the game started it was the wind that was going to play a bigger part in this game than any player. The gusting would not allow either hooker to throw in straight or long, and passes more often than not drifted in the wind and meant passing became a lottery at times. Colchester used their larger players from the outset and they ran hard to pass over the advantage line time and time again. The Wold backs were tackling hard, with Connor, Darius and Jake having to tackle more often than being tackled. There were some nice runs from Alex and Pablo, but failure to stop the rolling maul resulted in Colchester’s first try. Southwold fought their way back in the game with some solid runs from Olly and Zak. Quick ball from Chris soon found Connor and Jacob E, who then gave Simon a chance to open his legs. However the opposition were solid in their defence. They then turned over the ball and with several phases of possession, they soon found themselves in the Wold 22. As a ruck formed, the Southwold defence followed the player’s dummy and left the blindside undefended for the Colchester player to score despite Darius’s attempt to hold him up. From the kick off, Wold chased well and with good possession they tried to attack with a neat Callum kick through. Again Colchester covered their positions well. As the game went from left to right it was Colchester who scored just before the break as they were awarded a slightly dubious penalty when holding onto the ball themselves, and then allowed to take this from behind the ref’s back to power over. Score at half time 0-15.

The half time talk was short and to the point: keep playing as they were.

Second half saw possession being more equal, along with the area of the pitch that each team controlled. Following some good work from Michiel, and Cairns it was the backs that moved the ball wide. Passes were clean and as the try line beckoned from an overlap, a retreating Colchester player was on hand to intercept the pass. Despite some fine defending from Jake, Jacob B and Olly, Colchester were then awarded their fourth try following some nice passing from the backs. Wold were not out of this game as Innes stole the ball well and Alex continued to impress with his strong running from number 8. Blondie also put in a fine cover tackle but then had to depart injured (briefest sub appearance on record?). Kieran also tackled well against the large wing on the right, and Jens put in some big tackles throughout. Colchester were soon rewarded again as they scored another backs try, followed by a power try from the big prop. For Wold it seemed that any break they made was soon covered by the drifting defence of Colchester, a sign of their organisational skills. This was unfortunately not a day for our backs to use their pace, but one to show their defensive ability and not to give in during the match. All put in tackles that they should be proud of.

They may have lost this game by 6 unconverted tries to nil, but with a little bit of lady luck on the day they may have at least have scored in this game (which I’m sure even Colchester would agree they deserved). Credit must go to all those who played, and those who were on the touchline supporting their team mates.

The coaching staff can only be proud of the way the team played not only today, but in all games this season so far. The boys proved today that they are a team that have come on huge amounts since last year’s fixture and can stand toe to toe with any team. This is a fine squad of players and will be a challenge for any team in 2012.

Man of Match : Pablo for an overall solid performance.
Iron Man : Jens for several big tackles and matching the County prop throughout .
Idiot of the Match : Callum (you know why!)