Beccles Bulls 34-7 Stanford Le Hope

Eastern Counties 1

13/04/02

In this 'winner-takes-all' promotion decider between the joint second placed sides of Eastern Counties Division 1 the Bulls produced probably their best game of the season to completely demolish a shell-shocked Stanford-le-Hope side and in the process produce another 'Promotion-Cup Double' winning season back to back with last seasons. Playing in front of a large , and vocal home crowd definitely contributed to the whole teams performance and the club would like to thank their supporters for turning out in such numbers.
After the earlier heaviest league defeat at the hands of SLH, the Bulls had worked hard in their training and tactics to counter a side that had virtually starved them of any clean possession in Essex. Such was the reversal of fortune that you could count on the fingers of 1 hand the number of line outs SLH won on this occasion which produced the platform for the Bulls to rampage all over the park with SLH having little to offer in response.

Electing to face into the stiff breeze in the 1st half the Bulls steamed out fired up to take the match to their visitors from the opening whistle. The stage was set when from the 1st line out SLH threw the ball to their front jumper who, with a considerable height advantage, was expected to clean up the whole match. However as he sailed up the excellent Darren Ley contrived to get in front of him and steal the ball setting the stage for a quickly driven maul that took play up to the SLH try line. With the maul stopped feet short No8 Andy Warnes came cannoning through from deep, onto a popped pass, to crunch over and score injuring the aforementioned crucial lineout jumper of SLH in the process who tried to tackle him. Fly half Jon Puxley slotted the conversion and minutes later added a difficult penalty to open up the highly desirable '2-score' lead.

With the SLH line out in disarray and with Bulls young hooker Stuart Lake finding his jumpers with unerring accuracy the Bulls completely dominated the half even when facing the breeze. The closest their visitors came to scoring was a desperate drop-goal attempt that sailed wide.

Darren Ley was next on the score sheet after some excellent support play enabled him to receive the scoring pass and dive over. The SLH side was further depleted when this time one of their centres tried to tackle Warnes on the crash and almost lost his ear in the process , luckily some timely stitching at the Beccles Memorial Hospital, to whom we extend our appreciation, saw him return to the clubhouse after the match in time to catch the bus home. This disruption was almost immediately exploited by Puxley when, with a smooth handling movement mid-field, winger Pete Anderson was put into space for the 1st of a brace of tries during the match. Puxley continued the scoring with a finely struck conversion to make the half time score 22 - 0 in favour of the Bulls.

Stanford spent the half time break well and reorganised themselves with both their lineout and scrummage improving considerably , but this did little to deter the Bulls
enthusiasm for the match.

From the restart the Bulls continued to charge into their visitors at every opportunity with Lake, John Hepton, Danny Carter and blindside winger Dilly Dawson offering an alternative to Warnes whom the opposition started marking heavily especially down the blind side. This enabled even more space around the tight which skipper and scrum half Owen Hadridge was quick to exploit and dart through the smallest chinks of daylight. With the ever-present Chris Hinsley always first to the breakdown a constant supply of second and third phase possession was eagerly distributed across the back line.

Anderson increased the winning margin with his second try when the ball was spun wide and fast enabling him to cruise past his opposite number to score in the corner.
Unfortunately, the Bulls pre-match target of keeping a clean sheet in this crucial match was denied them when in a virtual re-run of this try , this time down the other wing found the SLH full back facing a four-man overlap. His desperate attempt at an interception succeeded when failure would have meant a certain try. He sprinted fully the length of the pitch to score a dramatic consolation try for Stanford uncontested as the Bulls had thrown all their players into the attack at the other end.

This lifted the Stanford spirits and spectators but was a brief respite when moment's later vice-Captain Jon Payne cantered over for the final try of the match in response. Puxley finished an excellent kicking performance with another well struck conversion to give the final score line of 34 - 7.

This excellent all round team performance caps another fantastically successful year for the Bulls with the young pack rampantly dominating and with bags of pace out wide their expansive game should stand them in good stead in the London Divisions.
Beccles town centre was the place to be as the celebrations continued into the early hours and thanks from the club to The Kings Head Hotel who rewarded the team with some eagerly accepted beer tokens to aid the enjoyment.

Next week sees the final match for the Bulls this season in the local derby against neighbours Southwold , themselves 'Doublers' this year to contest the annual Pony-Moore trophy re-scheduled from earlier in the season. 3pm KO on the Common at Southwold where the usual hard fought local derby is to be anticipated.

Andy Warnes.

Beccles Press Officer.