A Poor Performance for Woodham

There is no way to dress this one up, South Woodham Ferrers RFC put in a poor performance this weekend to go down 43 point to 5 against their strong and well organised North Walsham visitors.

The lads were under pressure from the off, made worse when Dom Hoey was harshly yellow carded for entering a ruck at the side deep in the red zone. The immediate pressure of being down to 14 men and some poor defending resulted in Walshams first unconverted try, 5 nil down within the first 5 minutes.

For the remainder of the sin bin period the lads competed well with the pressure of the Walsham attack but spent far too much time in their own half as the very strong wind brought in by storm Brian prevented them from kicking clear. Ross Noakes made one great break out run but the Woodham attack could not capitalise on it.

As the half progressed we saw some great attacking play from the visitors which resulted in two further tries. A fourth very soft try was to come from the kick-off as the Woodham defence seemed to fall asleep to let them run in under the posts.
With half-time approaching and the home side 24 nil down we saw a spark of the real Woodham side as they finally got the attack sorted, coming to within inches of the whitewash. Sadly the attack resulted in the injury of the in-form Dom Hoey, victim of a knee in the leg as the Walsham defence held strong. The same attack also resulted in a yellow card for Walsham so they were to be one short for the first 10 minutes of the second half.

Despite the one man advantage Woodham couldn’t break through the North Walsham defence and too often attacking ball was squandered. Indeed it was the visitors who scored first with another un-converted try and who were again in the ascendancy. Once returned to the full 15 they battered the Woodham defence. Ross Noakes received the sides second yellow, taking one for the team as they had been guilty of a number if infringements in the red zone. The ill-discipline also resulted in a penalty try and the game was out of reach.
One more converted try for Walsham meant that Woodham were playing for pride in the remaining minutes of the game. Not wishing to ship 50 point or go without scoring the final quarter of the game was by far the home sides brightest period. Tani Loke got the consolation try the lads wanted but the final score will be a disappointment to all.

It was an uncharacteristically poor performance the likes of which we have not seen in the last two seasons. The pack simply did not get going and were often outmuscled in the scrum and the backs were starved of the ball, working largely with scraps. Missed tackles, poor discipline and game management were the home team’s downfall but that shouldn’t take anything away from the visitors who were simply a better side on the day.

David Baker