Colchester B U16’s v H&D U16’s

The fixture was played on Colchester’s new 4G first team pitch which was bound to produce a good game.

As expected Colchester started strong and made some initial powerful runs, using their big forwards to puncture the Harwich defence. Harwich initially defended well but soon Colchester found a hole in the defence and crossed the line for the first score of the game. The conversion attempt went wide. Not content with this Colchester came back straight away with the big hitters and continued to punish the Harwich defence. Harwich began to settle and put in some big tackles, led by forward of the match Joe Turner. But unfortunately, this was not enough to keep Colchester out and they scored again making the score 10 – 0 after the first 10minutes.
This second try awakened the Harwich pack and after a couple of dominant scrum turnovers the forwards found their feet and started making power runs of their own. After a few phases of play that saw Colchester on the back foot and some neat passes in the backs it was winger Ryan Bradley who managed to put points on the board for Harwich, conversion kick was missed. Both sides were competing very hard and play was back and fourth for the remainder of the half, until after some slick hands out of contact from Flynn Garwood, Bradley Durrant managed to cross the line for his first try of day. Ben Smith slotted the conversion for the extra two points. Half time score was Colchester 10 – Harwich 12.

The second half started well for Harwich who continued to show their dominance in the scrums, allowing no8 Tommy Moore to pick and go and stretch his legs from the base of the scrum. This also enabled our backs to run at pace and pass the ball with relative ease which led to Bradley Durrants second try of the game and Ben Smiths second successful conversion. Colchester picked up the pace and started making some powerful runs again, but hooker MJ Clutton put in tackle after tackle to squash their attempts and Harwich soon found themselves on the front foot again and flanker Jake Woods crossed the line for Harwich’s 4th try of the game, Ben Smiths trusty boots kicked yet another successful conversion. Colchester once again came back strong and put in some hard yards through their forwards and crossed the line for their 3rd try of the game which was very well converted to gain the extra points. Harwich kicked off and the ball was caught by Colchester’s big second row player who took a chance and kicked the ball away, but unfortunately due to the wind the ball went backwards allowing winger Ryan Bradley to use his football skills to dribble the ball, pick it up and run over for his second try of the game. Ben Smith finished the scoring with another successful conversion and the referee blew the whistle for full time.

Final Score Colchester B 17 – Harwich 33

A great team performance and well managed game.

Thank you for all the parents and supporters for the side-line encouragement.

Report by Lee Durrant