This was an excellent result against a very physical Stortford team.

Chelmsford U14s had a strong team out for this game which was hastily arranged after our planned opposition, Wanstead, had to pull out of our first-round Essex Waterfall Cup game, meaning we were granted a walkover.

The game was played in extraordinary conditions for October - sunny and 25C, with the dust rising off the pitch as the boys ran, like zebras on the Savanna.

There was a South African-style challenge on the pitch too, with the Stortford boys cheering every big tackle and counter ruck. Our forwards didn’t take a backwards step, to their great credit, and delivered plenty of good ball for the backs to work with.

The backs delivered, moving the ball well and getting over the try line regularly. For the coaches it was pleasing to see some of the things we have been working on being implemented. Our last try in particular was a beauty, with the centre dummying to the outside and then turning the ball back on the inside to a back-row forward running onto it from depth and at pace.

The game also uncovered plenty of things to work on, including guarding the fringes of rucks, body position/self-preservation in the contact area and forwards hunting in packs rather than drifting off towards the wings.

After Friday night’s floodlight tournament at Southend, we move into a few weeks to work on these areas. After a slightly slow start to the season, the boys look to be reaching back up to their level from the end of last season and we have seen that additional intensity in training and in preparing to play.

Word for our number 8, usually a centre, who brought extra physicality to our pack, at least until he dropped the ball over the try line. Regular readers will recall we did this last time out too and we did train this mid-week. Our hero’s excuse was that he didn’t want to hurt his knees by falling on the hard ground. It’s raining torrentially as I write this so I don’t think that is a problem we’ll have for much longer.

Man of the match, voted by the opposition, went to our fly-half, and the coaches went for our second row. Our boys voted for the Stortford big number 5.