Our U21 forwards won the game again and our backs determined the scoreline

Southwold U21s continued their Christmas tour with the long trip to Woodbridge on a cold and foggy evening. Enthusiasm amongst the players, with some having played 3 matches in a week, was understandably limited and this was not helped by other players not turning up or letting their teammates down at the last minute by deciding not to make the journey. That said, the 14 that did make the effort, plus Philip Carlstroem - now a Woodbridge Colts player but formally of Southwold was happy to play for alongside his brother, and Man of the Match, Olly. This was the first time they have played together and sums up what these U21s fixtures are all about. Woodbridge also lent us another forward to ensure numbers were even, as well as lending their kit, drinks bottles, kicking tee’s and anything else that some dickhead (Roger) forgot!

Once the game was underway Woodbridge put considerable pressure on Southwold for the first 10 minutes and had it not been for some really solid defence and some interesting options from Woodbridge to kick when keeping the ball in hand would have been the better option, especially when only 20 metres from the try line. After weathering the early storm Southwold got into their familiar stride, with Jobe Brooks, playing his first full match of the season, turning ball over assisted by Phil Pymer also playing his first match this season being a real nuisance. After some great pressure our first try was scored by Kieron in the corner.

The quick ball continued to be created by ferocious tackling from Tom, Alex and Philip Carlstroem and the subsequent turnovers allowed Darius, playing superbly at 9, time to control the match which he, alongside Josh Wallis, playing out of position at 10 did extremely well. Olly and Will soon capitalised on the amount of ball being won and our second try resulted a great break from Olly who offloaded to Will who put Barton over the line for his first try of the night.

Whilst the final scoreline looks like a heavy defeat, this is certainly not reflective of the game and with only 10 minutes left it was only 22 – 10 to Southwold with Woodbridge gradually getting on top and it was clear to see that if they had scored one more try it would have been a very tense finish. However, Southwold knew they had the pace out wide and as soon as the first opportunity came to run the ball, they did so with confidence and scored three tries in quick succession. The first being a full length of the field effort scored by Barton, the second being a trademark 50m run from Will and the last one resulting from some great hands and touched down by Josh and then converted from an extremely difficult angle by Jack Austin, who somehow manged to play the whole match!!!