In our latest weekly rugby round-up, Colchester grab a tough win on the road in an Essex derby, and the undefeated Bury Foxes keep flying with a win at Chelmsford.
London One North
Southend Saxons 13
Colchester 28
Colchester travelled to Southend expecting a tough away game and so it proved to be.
They led at the interval after a scrappy first half by both sides, the hosts had a purple patch in the third quarter drawing level before the Blacks eventually clicked into gear to come out the winners.
The visitors took a quick 6-0 lead through David Higgins penalties, and looked well-placed for an away win when Brett Cutbush darted over for a try to make it 13-0 at the break.
Saxons came out and threw everything they had at Colchester though, with only great defence keeping them out.
Winger James Crozier was yellow carded though, and Southend slotted home the resultant penalty to make it 13-3.
Soon it was 13-10 as the Saxons crossed for a score, and then things started to unravel with Harrison Pickett red carded for a dangerous tackle, and a penalty made it 13 apiece.
But Colchester raised their game with first Higgins converting a penalty, then flanker Brock Price scoring from the back of a successful scrum five metres from the hosts’ line.
In the dying moments of the game, Colchester won a defensive scrum and used their pace to run the length of the field in a brilliant piece of interplay for Higgins to score and convert the final try.
Fullerians 7
Sudbury 19
Sudbury battled to a well-deserved and important away win on Saturday and were helped by other results to go up above Luton.
The home side took the lead with a converted try after 27 minutes, but the Suffolk visitors got back into it with a Jake Sumner try with just two minutes left in the half.
In the last ten minutes Fullerians lost their way, starting with a short lineout that went wrong, giving Sudbury field position.
A second lineout was poached by Sam Maile and quick hands put Dan Harding over to score with ten minutes left. Tom Summers converted to put Sudbury ahead by five points.
Fullers never recovered from this and from the restart Sudbury attacked again and from one of their best passages of play all afternoon shipped the ball wide to the left for Matt Johnston to run round behind the posts to score a converted try, denying the home side the losing bonus point.
Old Priorians 36
Diss 14
Old Priorians hit the ground running from the outset, scoring two well-taken converted tries within the first ten minutes.
Back came Diss, with Marco Mongia releasing Warren Wilby, who showed wonderful determination to score, Chris Beaird converting.
Sadly, weak Diss defence gave Priorians the opportunity to extend their lead prior to half time thus placing them under more pressure for the remainder of the game.
A couple more tries sealed the win for the home side, but Jake Girdler grabbed a late consolatiom for Diss.
Essex Cup
Chelmsford 59
Maldon 10
Chelmsford won this game quite comfortably, fielding only six players who played the previous week, and the players who came in will have caused coach Kevin Blackmore plenty of headaches regarding selection for next week’s league game.
Man of the match Jack Acorn grabbed a hat-trick, while Ross Toomey, Ben Franklin, Henry Payne, Mike Dawson and Joe Burton added tries of their own in a domininant showing.
Women’s National Challenge East 1
Chelmsford 3
Bury Foxes 48
The undefeated Foxes cruised to a big win in Essex, dominating with a strong scrum and impressive running from their backs.
Tries came from Stephanie Durrant, Natalie Palmer, Em Gattlin, Robyn Gordon, Steph Hanratty, Danni Lee and a brace from Sammi Rackham.
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