Beccles Bulls 41-14 Ely

Eastern Counties 1

9th March 2002

The return fixture of the Bulls opening league encounter this season saw Beccles return to winning ways by an even larger margin than before. The extraordinarily windy conditions, if anything, favoured the visitors as Ely's tactics tended towards the tight game whereas the Bulls, at their best, spin the ball wide as often as possible.

The Bulls started the match playing slightly into the gale conditions but the side was so determined to win this match that they rarely walked backwards regardless. A hard fought duel up front was anticipated but it has to be said that the older and heavier Ely pack found the Bulls side too much too handle in both the scrum, maul and lineout. In fact the only time they contested was in the ruck where the Bulls were surprisingly generous and conceded possession on a number of occasions allowing Ely's young fly-half to punt them out of trouble and deep into Bulls territory.

An even early exchange, which as it turned out was probably the best that Ely were to get for the afternoon, meant that the score line was still 0 - 0 after 20 minutes or so. The Bulls had marched close to the visitors try line on a number of occasions, only to concede the ball in contact or mostly give away penalties. After two disappointing league results the Bulls confidence was not at its highest and if Ely could have held out this half the match could have probably gone in a different direction. But from a line-out on the half-way line an excellent throw into the wind from hooker Stuart Lake, who was pin-point accurate all game, remarkably so in the conditions, found Darren Ley at his best rising high above the opposition. A swiftly driven maul ensued and marched Ely downfield 15 metres before skipper Owen Hadridge sneaked the ball blind side and popped to No8 Andy Warnes who crunched through the straining visiting defence to open the scoring. Fly half Jon Puxley added the conversion.

This score was exactly what the Bulls needed and you could sense the confidence building in the side from that point onwards. Club stalwart John Hepton was next on the score sheet when he stole an Ely lineout from 10 yards out and steamrollered his way over, wide out, with despairing defenders clinging to him. The conversion into the wind was impossible.

With half time approaching the kick-off could have been the last move of the half, but a fine take and recycle by Dave Kingston, enabled a slight dart infield from Hadridge to open a small gap for Warnes to wriggle through for a scoring gallop fully half the length of the field neatly side-stepping the full back en-route. Puxley made no mistake with the conversion to give a half time lead of 19 - 0 to the Bulls.

The Bulls further cemented their lead minutes into the half when a rare passage of play towards the other touchline enabled the ball to be spun wide, wind assisted. The three-quarters took their opportunity with relish and rounded the Ely defence with 2 men over, Danny Cracknell claiming the touchdown. Young prop Reese Ling then had to leave the field with a rib injury to be replaced by his brother Lee Moon. Without the wind it has to be said the winning margin would have been much greater as minutes later left winger, Matt Kerry, produced a similar move by rounding the Ely defence wide out himself and could have done so all day given enough possession.

Ely finding themselves on the wrong side of 30 points had to dig deep and give them their due they certainly did. They marched back down field; crash centres to the fore and eventually got themselves a converted try.

The Bulls responded immediately from the kick off with a pressurised scrum forced on the visitor's 5-metre line. The Beccles pack forced their visitors put in backwards over their own try line and alert Hadridge dived into the base of the scrum as it crossed the line to claim the try regardless of the flying boots. Flanker Darren Maier, who bought an increased mobility to the pack, enabling Ley to move to the No8 slot, then replaced Warnes.

Ely responded with a try of their own after a quick tapped penalty enabled their No8 to go over from 5 metres out. Their young fly half curled the conversion incredibly over the posts by almost kicking straight across them, a talent for the future to be sure.

The Bulls had the last say however; when they forced a scrum some 20 metres out from the Ely try line. They then worked excellently together to put together a drive this entire distance remarkably keeping it square to enable Ley to claim the best push-over try seen at Beef Meadow for many, many seasons.

An excellent team performance that added vital points to the goal differential and hopefully results will have gone the Bulls way from the other top of the table fixtures on Saturday.

Andy Warnes.

Beccles Press Officer.