Return of Senior Rugby at HDL

Saturday saw the return of full contact rugby for the first time in 16 months at Humber Doucy Lane with Ipswich hosting Blackheath Bandits from south east London.

Of the field it was fantastic to see so many club members and supporters back at Humber Doucy Lane watching live rugby again after the enforced break.

On the field the crowd was treated to a fierce competitive disciplined performance from both teams playing their initial pre-season games before the 2021-22 league season commences in mid-September.

Any intentions that this would be a loose pre-season game were dispelled when Blackheath elected to kick for goal in the 3rd minute following an Ipswich infringement, and Ipswich followed suit 4 minutes later with skipper Corey Button kicking a steepling 42 meter penalty to give the home side the lead.

The half time was very competitive but Ipswich took their chances with Josh Wright and Ali Margetts scoring tries both converted by Button giving Ipswich a 17-0 advantage.

Both coaches made some changes for the second half, and it was Blackheath who scored first finishing off am excellent move which was unconverted.

Ali Margetts scored his second try of the afternoon to extend the Ipswich lead, before Blackheath again showed strong resilience to score an unconverted try to make the score 22-10 in the hosts favour.

The remaining 15 minutes was evenly shared in terms of possession and territory, but Ipswich found spaces on the Blackheath right defence and scores were made by Josh Brooke finishing off from 30 metres and Tim Mann hitting a strong “unders” line to score, both unconverted to leave a final score of 32pts to 10 to Ipswich.

Both teams after an extended lay off deserve credit for the relative skill and fitness levels on show, and the game’s flow was aided by some excellent refereeing by Steven Field.

Head coach Jim Clark and assistant coach Tim Mann will be pleased with the work out in particular the set piece in which 100% of own scrums were won with a win against the head, and 70% of Line Outs won and one steal.

Areas no doubt to work upon in this week’s training are to reduce the penalties conceded (13 against 8 awarded) and the 10 handling errors.
Next Saturday 14th August sees Ipswich host London 1 opposition Norwich RFC with 2 games being played, the development squad kicks off at 1.30pm and the first team game at 3.30pm, all spectators and members are welcome.