Southwold u13 - 15, Colchester u13A - 35

In unbelievably warm weather on the Common for an October morning, Southwold put up their best display against Colchester with this group of players. Wold were honoured to play the Colchester A team especially as last time they played two years ago the match was a rout. The scoreboard looked uneven by the end, but the match was far from that, being closely fought apart from a final 10 minutes when Wold ran out of steam and were confused by a raft of enforced changes.

The game was played with a superb attitude by both teams, fair, hard and determined to spin the ball around and display their skills. Colchester drew first blood with a couple of scores after some long passages of play where both sides were rucking excellently, offloading at will and moving the ball into space. Southwold replied with a beautifully worked try off a midfield scrum, as scrum half Finney released his 10 Louis down the right hand side who attacked at pace, drew the defence and sent a lovely miss pass into the hands of speedy winger Callum to round the cover and race into the corner. Throughout the game the scrums were going very steady for both sides with some controlled pushes and only a couple of balls lost against the head. Defence and attack in the backlines were impressive for such young players.

To accommodate the large squads, changes were made en masse after 15 minutes, then more again at half time on the 25 minutes. Colchester worked another couple of tries after Wold failed to deal with kicks deep into their territory, but he home side rallied again through two typical galloping Max tries as the no8 managed to round the defence and touch down twice in the right hand corner. After a Colchester try due to some poor tackling took Wold two scores behind, the teams had another change around, and it became hard graft for the home team as they found themselves constantly scrambling in defence for the last ten minutes. Breaks by Jesse and Oscar F came to nothing. Troy, Harrison, Kai, Fred and Will all did fine stints in the front row. Callum and James also learnt a lot about defence duties out wide on the wings. Inevitably Wold heads eventually drooped and, largely through waning concentration, they shipped a final couple of scores caused mainly by some mazy running from the visitors backline.

Southwold welcomed Jesse for his first match with the club, and the other players voted him their MOM on his debut after some fines runs and sound tackles. Coaches MOM went to Raife for another tireless performance from the second row, driving chasing, tackling and running his heart out.

Squad: Will, Kai, Fred, Troy, Harrison B, Freddie P, Arthur, Raife, Oscar C, Max, Finney, Henry, Louis, Freddie L, Harrison H, Oscar F, James, Callum