Mersea Island 38 – Beccles 23

  An Injury hit Beccles lost to top of the table Mersea Island when they travelled down to Essex. Despite leading at half time Beccles were pegged back and lost 38-23 despite a late rally.

   Beccles were missing Rob Wilson from the pack and Payne and Gedney from the backs. These were replaced by Holtzer, Dyer and Hall.

  The game got of to a bad start for Beccles when a missed tackle let the Mersea full back to run in under the posts for a converted try. Beccles began to dominate after this and Murray soon reduced the deficit with a penalty. He narrowly missed with another penalty before he was unlucky to have a long range drop goal come back off the post.

  The Beccles pack was dominating and the backs were putting some good moves together. Marc Dyer made a number of good breaks down the wing and was made the Musker McIntyre man of the match.

  The domination soon turned in to points with a try. Hinsley stole an opposition line out and the ball was driven towards the line by Rix. He was stopped just short but Johnstone picked up from the back of the ruck and stretched over the line for a try.

  Beccles continued to dominate and added another penalty before their next try. Wade fed Green and then looped round to receive the ball back and crash over to score.

  Mersea managed to score another try before half time which meant that Beccles led at half time by 16-12.

  Mersea Island are keen to win the league this year and played a lot better rugby in the second half. They turned the game in the first twenty minutes of the second half with four quick tries. Three of which came while Sale was in the sin bin.

  Beccles refused to let their heads go down and battled back bravely. They dominated the closing minutes of the match and added another try for their efforts. After Mersea were offside on their own line a quickly taken penalty was fed to Wilson who crashed over for a score. Murray added the conversion to give a final score of 38-23.

  Beccles now have five league games left this season against teams below them in the table. The table is looking very tight with Beccles in fourth only one point off the bottom two. Beccles will be looking to win all of their remaining games and improve on their best ever finish of last year. They start against Basildon on Saturday at Beef Meadow (KO 2:30). There is a VP’s lunch before hand which starts st 12:00.