Woodham Away at Maldon

To start the New Year Woodham were away this week at Maldon, who were also hosting Braintree for a Tri match fixture. Braintree brought along several teams and Woodham played Braintree first.

The Christmas break had obviously seen the boys enjoying the festivities too much as they seemed lacklustre and sluggish. Braintree capitalised on this and scored several tries in quick succession. Woodham seemed to be avoiding the tackle and were herding all over the pitch leaving large gaps for Braintree to run through. Sore at Half time was 4 – 0 to Braintree.

Woodham came out in the second half with a renewed vigour, and started to make some sound tackles. Wood got the occasional gain in ground only to be beaten back by the Braintree defence. Again the team were herding after the ball and again let Braintree through on the wings, suffering for their mistakes in the process. Score at the final whistle was 8 – 0 to Braintree.

After a short break the team regrouped for the first of two matches against Maldon. The team started to settle into the game well, took the lead with a couple of tries. The tackling improved, the passing was good and the game looked like it was a sure win for Woodham.

The second half Maldon stepped up their game and Woodham again found themselves herding the ball, and only gaining a foot or two from the tackle. Maldon, like Braintree, cessed the opportunity and went round the side on Woodham multiple times, scoring 4 tries to Woodham’s 1. Final score at the end of the second half was 4 – 3 to Maldon.

For the last match Woodham had a new tack-tick following some quick training from Mark. Woodham slowed the game down, spreading the team out before passing off the ball by the scrum half from the tackle. This seemed to help Woodham keep their positions better and this produced more a quality game of Rugby. Archie took an excellent tackle in the try area taking the Maldon player out of the dead ball line to stop Maldon scoring. However Maldon were too strong for Woodham and final score was 5 – 0 to Maldon.

A slow start to the new year from the team, and the recent bad weather and lack of training shows. Man of the match went to Archie for not giving up and showing determination in the games.

Squad this week was: Aaron, Archie, Ashley, Ben, Harvey, Jacques, Jake, Josh, Morgan, Oliver, Ross, Samuel, Toby