SWF 6 vs Brentwood/Billericay 2

Woodham turned up in great spirits today and were unlucky not to claim the record for fastest try in history after a perfect kick off by James Skelt was chased and won by Dan Williams who then drove it over the line within the first 3 seconds. Unfortunately, the eagle-eyed ref apparently saw a knock-on and the try was disallowed but it showed the boys what they could do if they believed in themselves.

George Tickner put in a cracking shift by pressuring his counterpart scrum half throughout the match inducing many knock-ons due to his constant harassment. Tom Woolard stepped up in a similar fashion and had the game of his life. His tackles gave cause for the opposition to avoid his channels because every time they went down Tom’s wing, there he was imposing his will by driving in the tackles and contesting every ruck forcefully. Such was his performance that he was unanimously nominated by every coach at South Woodham for man of the match.

It seems that Woodham came into their own today with every player stepping up and giving the performance of their lives. As such, they camped in Brentwood / Billericay’s half until following unremitting pressure, a penalty was awarded to Woodham. Ball went to Big Joe McClure who did what he does best by running at them with speed and force to drive through for the first try.

A very good individual effort led to an opposition try which focussed the minds of all of Woodhams players. The team has been working on drift defence and they really put this into practise on the pitch leaving limited gaps for the opposition to exploit. Noah Watkins absolutely dominated the pitch and took every one of the big players out with some of them losing their appetite for the match as a result.

A beautiful run by James Skelt, wrong stepping 2 players and drawing in a 3rd before off-loading to Ewan who once again was in the right place at the right time. Ewan found both his speed and self-belief to beat the opposition full back who just didn’t have the legs to get to him before scoring a superb try.

Another crunching tackle by Noah Watkins, saw the ball spill out and the quick reactions of Hayden Allen saw him scoop up the ball and run it over the line and took the score to 3-1.

Another try by South Woodham was disallowed just before half time due to a knock-on but showed potential for what’s to come.
A co-ordinated call of blitz into deep left with Dan Williams and Hayden Allen chasing showed promise and is something to look out for in the future.

A great run by Nathan Davies who drew the opposition over to the left and presented well led to very quick ball. With the right exposed, the team showed great vision by immediately pushing the ball out wide right and capitalised on the overload with Dan Williams running in a really well worked, intelligent team try taking the score to 4-1.

Mitchel Hill showed great promise and worked really well to recycle the ball quickly from the base of a ruck repeatedly through the match.
Another good individual run saw the opposition claw back a try to make it 4-2.

Another massive tackle by Tom Woolard, led to a turnover that was capitalised on by Dan Williams who ran in another try taking the score to 5-2. The try was good but the tackle that led to it was beautiful to behold.

With James Skelt coming off due to injury, Lukian Wall-Line stepped up and showed great leadership keeping the team on the boil. A promising kick by James Hallett led to a chase and crunching tackle. Josh Jasper cleared out the ruck with such effect that the opposition had to come in from the side conceding a penalty in the process.

Nathan Davies takes the ball into contact, offloaded to Dan Williams, into a ruck with Nathan clearing out, ball passed out wide to the other side of the pitch for another intelligent team try with Big Joe McClure finishing well and taking the final score to 6-2.

It all came together for team today and their efforts in training week in week out are now bearing fruit. Whilst there were moments of individual excellence, it was the team performance as a whole that really stood out.