IPSWICH 10 - 10 ROMFORD & GIDEA PARK

Oh so close to celebrating a 1st XV win over 2nd placed Romford & Gidea Park who were our London 2 NE visitors to Humber Doucy Lane last Saturday.

A monster pre-match lunch and plenty of walk up spectators provided a lively pre-match atmosphere with many of our visiting spectators praising the friendly and traditional welcome. Long may that continue!

The Heads n Tails and Martin Johnson signed ball auction also raised valuable funds for The SICK CHILDREN'S TRUST. Well done and thank you to the U15 age group, to Reuben Bolton, to Gordon Ball and to all others involved.

Neutral outsiders may have been easily persuaded to put money on a win for Romford who have promotion ambitions and lie 2nd in the league. Chris Blom our talismatic 1st XV captain was on a one match ban so on paper it may have looked a little ominous for Ipswich especially with over 20 players throughout the senior squads unavailable of which 6 were potential 1st XV.

As written before Ipswich are capable of beating any side in the league and they very nearly did it on Saturday. Overall Ipswich were the better team, they were dominant in the scrum set piece and shaded the territorial advantage. All achieved by a mixed bag of the known and unknown. The scrum was chucked together last minute and there were the usual positional changes but it worked!

Cam Beaton, dodgy back n all, was drafted in last minute as hooker Chris Gowenlock's wife went into labour. Veteran Alex Primmer was plucked from the 3rds to mentor fellow second rower Fraser Goldie and Luke Steward was entrusted with the No.6 slot. Add in a new No.8 in Adedemola Adejuwon who has re-joined the club having been away at university and you can appreciate this was an instant superglue bonding phenomenon as Ipswich outscrummaged Romford all day - magnificent!

A 5-0 half time lead (smart play at a line out resulting in a try for winger Tawanda Akendemwa) having played with the strong breeze looked tight but centre Chris Ajalo - Kalapo stretched the home lead to 10-0 shortly after the re-start before Romford could reply with a penalty 10-3.

Ipswich ran nearly everything but got a little pinned territorially, hindered by the strong breeze now in Romford's favour and whilst Ipswich often broke strongly they couldn't quite get enough continuity to make significant yardage.

A Romford try well converted brought it back to 10-10. A long range penalty was missed by Romford but it was Ipswich who finished the strongest with a penalty opportunity themselves in the last 3 minutes from 25 metres passed over due to the strong breeze.

So...a good afternoons entertainment for the large crowd and 2 valuable points for our 1st XV despite all the significant injury and unavailability issues - well done to the players, coaches and all involved.