Holt 12-5 Beccles Bulls

Eastern Counties 1

23/02/02

Holt took revenge on the Bulls for defeats in their last 3 encounters by stealing a victory on Saturday against a disorganised Bulls team effected by last minute call-offs and late arrivals. This narrow defeat shows how tenuous the Bulls grip is on a promotion place as although still filling one of the 2 promotion slots available this season they have fierce competition from 2 other sides they have yet to face in return matches , namely Upper Clapton and Stanford Le Hope.

Additionally another surprising weekend score line was the narrow victory of league leaders Mersea Island who beat by only 1 point league strugglers Billericay who seem to have found some improvements to fend off relegation. This is not good news for the Bulls as they have yet to travel there and this could prove to be a potential 'banana-skin' as well.

With the atrocious conditions last Saturday effectively reducing the scoring ability of the Bulls , who rely on swinging the ball wide a great deal , Holt were definitely in with a chance from the outset. Call-off's by Hepton , Dawson and Henderson also contributed to this upset as did the late arrival of Warnes due firstly to airport closure in Houston and then a car breakdown between Holt and Norwich. Even this run of bad luck all told should still have not forced the Bulls to a defeat.

For this they have only themselves to blame due to lacklustre tackling on the fringes and midfield as Holt's winning try was at best 'soft' when their No8 , moved to winger due to a sin binning , strolled through un-opposed from 20 metres out to seal the game 20 minutes into the second half.

The first half was a closely fought affair with the Bulls facing the elements and yet 1st on the score sheet with a try by Charlie Hall after 4 phases of play drove them up field to the home line. Holt replied almost immediately with a converted try of their own using the wind to gain territorial advantage at every opportunity. The Bulls fought on by marching back upfield , ball in hand , throughout the half , but crucially losing possession at critical times to find themselves kicked all the way back downfield again. Turning around trailing 7 points to 5 with the wind now at their backs the Bulls should have been in the driving seat , but after 20 minutes their hosts scored the soft try which was effectively the turning point of the game.

Holt savagely hung on to this narrow lead using every trick in the book to spoil and kill the game which resulted in no fewer then 5 yellow cards being issued to them throughout the course of the game. The Bulls failed to deal with these tactics and the referee although happily issuing yellow cards should have been considering red's for persistent infringement or even awarding a penalty try after a spate of 3 yellow cards in the last 5 minutes when Holt killed every fast piece of possession the Bulls created in the hosts 22 meter area , even resorting to school yard tactics like kicking the ball away after penalties had been awarded.

The Bulls must get a meaner streak to deal with some of these infringements themselves, especially when opposition players elect to lay over the Bulls 3rd and 4th phase possession. Vigorous rucking of the offside mans body, to get to the ball, is permitted but not once was this seen on Saturday. This may have been a far more effective deterrent than a yellow card assisted 'rest'.

Now the Bulls need to win their remaining fixtures and hope for Mersea to slip-up to win the league as champion's, but , they are still in a promotion place and if they really want to work hard , it can be theirs.

Andy Warnes.

Beccles Press Officer.