H&D U16’s 31 - 7 Norwich U 16’s

The team-building day was a great success and the squad were in high spirits as they warmed up. Straight from kick off it was clear that Harwich & Dovercourt had one thing on their mind, crunching tackle after crunching tackle. This very quickly led to Norwich knocking the ball on in the contact area, however Norwich were more than capable of holding their own in the scrums. But, the hard-hitting tackles started to take their toll and after 20 min Harwich & Dovercourt captain Matt McCue used his footwork to find a gap and cross the try line. Unfortunately, Ben Smith missed with the conversion attempt. The remainder of the half was very much played in the centre of the pitch with both teams playing some good rugby but neither team finding a way through the defensive line.

Just before half time Troy Callen and Jake Stokes both had the same attacker in their sights but due unlucky timing saw them both clash heads. Both players felt the impact and unfortunately took no more part in the game. Norwich were very sporting and lent two players to bolster the Harwich & Dovercourt ranks. Losing both these key players spurred on the Harwich players and soon after winger Luca Mason darted over the line to score the second try of the game. Ben Smith slotted the conversion nicely between the posts.

The halftime talk was very positive from the visitors as they realised they had a strong foothold in the game and were feeling good.
Norwich started the second half strongly and they soon found themselves visiting the visitors 22 and looking good for their first points, but the Harwich & Dovercourt defensive had other ideas and thanks to some hard hitting tackles from prop Flynn Garwood and MJ Clutton, inside centre Bradley Durrant soon found himself running the ball back out to the half way line. The H&D boys were not happy that Norwich found front foot ball and soon found themselves attacking once again. Number 8 Tommy Moore showing his dominance in the rucks soon led to Full back Ben Smith finding himself in the attacking line and after burning past the defence he crossed the try line for Harwich & Dovercourt’s 3rd try of the game. He was unable to convert his own try.

To Norwich’s credit, they continued to play really good rugby and their forwards were starting to dominate in the scrums. However, they were unable to contain our fast hard-hitting centres and Oly Hubbard soon found himself scoring two quick fire tries. Ben Smith converted both tries to put Harwich & Dovercourt in a winning position. Norwich were determined to not let Harwich have a clean sheet and with the last play of the game managed to score a very well worked try, the conversion was successfully converted.

Final score Harwich & Dovercourt 31 – Norwich 7

A special shot out to the two men of the match: Ajay Powell for being a really pesky scrum half that Norwich could not get away from and Pierson Mann for stepping up into the hooker position in order to keep our scrum as powerful as possible.

What a great winning weekend from Harwich & Dovercourt Under 16’s.

Report by Lee Durrant