Bruising Braintree Battle Brings Back the Bacon

EUCRFC 12 – Braintree 5
A solid win for EUCRFC’s 2nd team shows that even when they are not on top form they can beat formidable opponents.

The EUCRFC’s side was mixed, with some new and old faces. The Epping lads started strong with some robust attacks against the Braintree side, a side that was much larger up front.

Eventually, a score was made for EUCRFC by McPat Coughlan. By taking advantage of a standard overlap the Clapton side managed to put the talented winger in the corner for his first Club try.

It didn’t, however, take long for Braintree to return the favour as a lucky turnover resulted in a score for their winger. The score sat at 5-5.

The remainder of the half saw some great advances from the likes of Liam Rodgers and John Gunnell. With some outrageous defence from Adam Ayres, who could be seen actually running around. Jack Hunt was yellow carded for being idiotic leaving EUCRFC with 14 men.

The second half saw many substitutions including Adam ‘Got No Fans’ Prince and Lee Garwood return to the pitch for the first time since last season. Garwood moved around the park in his usual feisty fashion and looked in good form whereas Prince spent most of his time on the deck or lashing out at people much smaller than him. There was a noticeable increase in scrums after Prince was brought onto the pitch.

A solid break from Liam Rodgers resulted in a try for the back row player and a conversion, from the class Alex Babb, put the score line at 12-5. The last 20 minutes saw some great defence from the EUCRFC side as the Braintree side, camped in the Epping half, attempted to bash their way over the try line.

The likes of Louis Dix and Smithy, who put their bodies on the line time after time, aided in ensuring that the win went to the EUCRFC’s 2nd team. Final score was 12-5.

The set pieces and the support play will require work, but overall not a bad performance.
A special, Christmas celebration, mention goes to James Crouch for completely trashing any opposition at Beer Pong and also completely trashing himself in the process.

Ed