Fun in the Sun

A sunny spring-like morning pleased players, parents and coaches alike who made the trip to the Essex coast. The Gold squad had travelled in expectations of games vs Harwich and Mistley, leaving the Blacks back at base to work on their skills ahead of the end of season festival run-in.

In the end, due to low numbers from both opponent teams, a combined "Harley" or "Miswich" squad of 9 was put together to take on the Ipswich lads across 4 periods of rugby.

Despite again showing an inconsistent level of focus in the warm-up, Ipswich started the game strongly, with Seb opening the scoring with a trade-mark long-range finish. A second score soon followed from a powerful Bryn Thomas drive, and then Jaydon ran in down the wing after good play and a good pass from Freddie to set up the opportunity.

Ipswich took their foot off the gas, and the opponents then showed they too had some dangerous strike runners, pulling back a try either side of the first interval.

Kamron then showed some good footwork to evade a tackle and capitalise on a good turnover at the ruck, the breakdown area being an area of strength all day.

However an area of weakness was the Ipswich defensive line, which was not aggressive enough in coming forward and left too many gaps and missed too many tackles for the coaches satisfaction. Harley Miswich took advantage twice more, although their scores were punctuated from a trademark drive over by Arthur for Ipswich's 5th and another good run to the corner by Seb for the Gold's 6th try.

The home team scored once more, again benefiting from some weakness in the tackle, however that would be that for scores for the red team. Ipswich finished the game with fine style with 5 unanswered scores including a brace from the elusive Issac John, a second try of the day from Kamron and a brace from captain Tomos Harries who led the team well on the day.

Ipswich were good going forward all day, with Dylan unrewarded on the scoresheet despite several good attacks. Initially we were strong individually with good combativeness at the breakdown, including Daniel who put his body on the line on several occasions. As the game progressed is was pleasing that the Ipswich boys started to try to express themselves some more and put some passing moves together. The coaches want to see more of this interplay towards the end of the season. The defensive line will however need to tighten up as we look forward to sterner tests to come in the weeks ahead.

Many thanks to Harwich for hosting us and combining with Mistley to get the game on. It is good to see the spirit of rugby persists and it is good to help clubs with smaller playing groups to continue to grow the gain in the region. All their players stuck to their task well and played some good rugby, including some strong and fast finishing.