Basildon 10 Chelmsford 31
(London Two North East League)

Chelmsford registered their 11th league win in succession with a fully deserved win against a spirited Basildon side at Gardiners Close last weekend. Whilst they scored 5 tries to 1 to secure a bonus point victory, their overall display understandably never reached the heights of the previous week’s match against Diss when they secured the London 2 North East League title.

Coach Eddie Gooby said after the game: “the best we can say about today’s game was a job well done. We were great and at other stages poor, but once again we were good enough to take five points from the game and that's a good thing to have. Basildon made it difficult as usual but we were never in trouble and it was great to give more players game time who have been part of the squad this year. We still have one record to beat this year, and that is most tries scored. We have beaten the all time points scored in a season this week. More important for me is that we maintain an unbeaten home record against Rochford in two weeks time. I will not be happy if we finish this record breaking season on a low.”

Chelmsford chose to rest a number of leading players, plus the fact that Jamie Ash, Josh Cavey and Harry Simpson were injured and Chris Hoult, Miles Pitcher and Ben Bayley were not available. A strong swirling wind didn’t help matters for both teams and this perhaps had an effect on the handling of both sides, which was poor, and both sides were guilty of making too many mistakes, especially with the ball in hand.

Chelmsford scored their first try after 8 minutes, following a great break by centre, Olly Wright, deep into the the Basildon 22. From a scrum, 2nd row Nick Sany was on hand to dive over the line for an unconverted try to take Chelmsford into a 5 – 0 lead. Basildon replied with a penalty 3 minutes later, when Chelmsford were penalised for not rolling away at the tackle to reduce the deficit to 5 – 3,then Chelmsford secured possession from the restart and then from a line out, a catch and drive saw fellow 2nd row, Nick Crouch score an unconverted try to increase Chelmsford’s lead to 10 – 3.

Chelmsford were then awarded a penalty for a high tackle and then centre Adam Cunnah took a well timed pass from fly half, Simon Hoult to score a great try near the posts, which Hoult converted to bring the score to 17 – 3 in Chelmsford’s favour. 10 minutes before half time, Basildon scored their only try when Chelmsford skipper Paul Redford made a good break from inside his own 22 metre, but a loose pass was then picked up by Basildon and they scored a well taken try which was converted to bring the score to 17 – 10. Just before half time they put more pressure on the Chelmsford line, but couldn’t convert this into points.

Miles Regan playing at flanker, then gave way to hooker Dave Hyett for the 2nd half, so Seth Robinson moved from hooker to flanker. Chelmsford started the 2nd half brightly and were encamped in the Basildon 22 for a long period. The home side then got on the wrong side of the referee and conceded 5 penalties on the trot. The referee finally lost his patience and yellow carded the Basildon scrum half for coming in the side of a ruck. From a scrum Chelmsford finally scored when Paul Redford broke down the blind side to dive over for a try, which Simon Hoult converted to take Chelmsford into a match winning lead of 24 – 10. At this point Sam Bensusan came on for centre Adam Cunnah. Chelmsford scored their final try after 25 minutes when Simon Hoult chipped a kick and wing Jack Acorn was on hand to catch the ball in the air and go over behind the posts for a converted try to take Chelmsford into a 31 – 10 lead.

Chelmsford themselves were then guilty of giving away a succession of penalties and full back, Jamie Morrish was yellow carded for not retiring 10 metres. The last 15 minutes of the game were more notable for the number of errors made by both sides and just before the final whistle, Simon Hoult had a chance of a long range penalty kick, which fell just wide, so Chelmsford ran out easy winners on the day, however, the game itself will not be remembered as one of Chelmsford’s best displays of the season