Woodham suffer another heavy defeat

South Woodham Ferrers Ist Team travelled to Saffron Walden RFC for a London 1 North game that both sides needed to win if they were to stay out of the increasingly tight bottom quarter of the table. Sadly for the visitors it was the home side that came away with all the points as Woodham were again victims of their Jeckle & Hyde performance. We saw flashes of real promise in this game but too many times they were cancelled out by the self destruct button that has crept into the Woodham game in the last two weeks.

The game started brightly for the visitors as they sought to establish themselves in the game. Some early attacks were rebuffed by Walden defence who were quick to exploit the counter attack. The home side opened the scoring after 10 minutes, punching a hole in the Woodham defence to score their first converted try. This was quickly followed by a second as a string of missed tackles allowed them over the Woodham line.

Woodham hit back with a period of good play as the forwards started to get into their stride, their reward was a fine try from Ricky Turner. The good work was undone when the lads failed to follow up a long clearance deep into the Waldon 22, the home side were able to run the ball straight back for their third converted score to go 21 to 5 up.

Their lead was very quickly cut back when Adam Brown converted his own try as Woodham again showed that when they have the ball and get themselves organised they are a real threat.

Half time came with the score nicely poised at 21 points to twelve.

The second half started with Woodham looking strong but a counter attack try for the home team seemed to knock the wind out of them. The game became disjointed after a long delay for an injured Saffron Walden player. It was the home team that recovered quickest from the stoppage and they scored again to take themselves out of reach.

Encouragingly the Woodham side kept at the task and although they were to go further behind from a penalty and yet another breakaway try it was the visitors who looked strongest towards the end of the half as they sought to salvage a bonus point. Ross Noakes finished the scoring with a well worked try but the game ended badly with an injury to Jack Reeve.

The game ended with the score 43 to 17 but the visitors should take heart from the fact that if they can cut out the defensive errors and get back to scoring from their periods of possession these games would be far more even and confidence will return.