Mersea 0 – 85 Ipswich Gold (Will R 2, Aston 2, Harvey, Alex 5, Logan 2, Ethan, Mo 2, Fred H, Bill)

A beautiful day on the island and my first ever visit to this very friendly club. Thank you to Mersea for looking after us all so well.

The score doesn’t reflect Mersea’s persistence and never say die attitude. They kept coming despite being under the cosh for long periods and I said to our boys afterwards that we can learn lots from their boys. Their heads never went down and they kept playing. Big lessons for us there when we are up against it. They have some good players and I’m sure with their great set up they will be more than a different side when we play them again.

We played with some freedom today. I was especially pleased with the phases we ran for both of the tries that ended up with Logan on the end of them. The first had five phases of controlled pick and go work by our forwards at the ruck and the second had three. Harvey was good at 10, showing his feet and going forward as asked at every opportunity. He played Will Raven in for our first try that gave the boys a real lift and set the tone for the mornings work to follow. Aston was strong out wide ball in hand to finish a number of times and show his good hand off strength. Alex got away a number of times and once he opened his legs nobody was going to catch him. Ethan showed his footwork in all its glory to skip round the corner and Mo made a couple of tries from nothing for himself at 9 from the base of five metre scrums proving how deadly he can be given an inch to wriggle through. Freddy Hudson got through lots of contact work up and down the park today and bagged himself one out wide that went through three phases with good work from Logan. Bill put in a captains performance leading from the front with a heavy tackle count and bagged a try after good close contact work from Rowan that released him to drive over. Stanley made his debut in black and Gold at 15 and shepherded the line well when necessary. He made some good tackles and has gelled with the boys beautifully since arriving. Ben played a half for us and a half for Mersea. Indeed, he very nearly broke our line out wide in a blue shirt after a storming twenty five yard run that nearly produced that elusive try for Mersea. AJ produced some very good tackles when he came on at half time in the centres and got through a lot of unseen work and Daniel gave his all in the front line continuing his development in positive manner.

What was good

Our rucking and counter rucking was very good today. Our individual attitudes also. We turned up in positive manner and worked hard for one another.

Things to improve on

Our tackling still needs a lot of work. We were high and wide on too many occasions today and we did get too bunched on a number of occasions in the defensive line but will be working hard on that in training this week.

Star Men

All the boys worked hard for the win so well done all. Alex was good ball in hand as were Aston and Mo. Bill and Fred’s tackle counts were very high and the communication from all was much better.

MoM today though was Logan. Here’s a lad who has worked his socks off in recent weeks and as a result now looks a different player. Keep it up big lad!

This week

Training Thursday and Sunday. Be there!

Thank yous

Thank you to all the parents and relatives that made the long journey.