Tough Outing for First Friendly of the Season

The first outing of the season proved to be a hard call as the First XV travelled to Southend to face a tough Essex outfit. Buoyed a good preseason training and with Sam Hatchet, Ben Hammond and Alfie Fordham making their senior debuts, the small squad set off with high expectations.

The Club also welcomed back Ben Mills (Pictured) fresh from his success in the recent Victorious Cambridge University team at the Varsity Match. The highly skilled hooker showed his full range of skills, by playing at outside centre!

The first five minutes of the match started well, building pressure, only to give away three penalties to be on our own five metre line, and eventually caving in to the pressure and conceding the first try.

Five minutes later in the middle of a positive attacking phase around half way, a loose pass out wide was cleanly intercepted by Southend winger putting us 12 - 0 down.

The Blue and Golds then failed to keep possession for the rest of the half, and a few rusty mistakes lead to easy turnovers for Southend and again with the penalty count rising and the resulting pressure, lead to another Southend try.

HT 19 - 0

Coming out after the break with only 14 due to injury meant we were always under pressure. And a neat penalty to the corner set up a five metre line out for Southend, with a failed maul but still retaining possession they were over the try line within a few phases.

Going down to 13 due to another injury we rallied a little and had some good spells. Great pressure from Euan Renny under the high ball saw him in possession and breaking a way. Beating one defender set himself up for a simple 2 on 1. And a well executed pass the Alfie Fordham secured our first try.

From the kick off we had a good spell of possession, using our structure to find space, exploiting that space seem to come naturally with two men short. A good set of backs play found Euan renny out wide who used his pace to head around the outside of the last defender and finish the move off.

Running out of steam due to the numerical difference the last five minutes swung back in Southend's favour, and with Enfield found wanting around the fringes, Southend replacement 9 had an easy snipe to go in under the posts from 40 metres.

With the clock in the red, and Enfield in the Southend 22 trying to salvage some pride, a loose pass went to ground. The ball was fly hacked by Southend and recovered by the winger, who with a simple pass, set the fullback through for the last score of the game.

Final score Southend 38 - 10 Enfield Ignatians RFC

MOM - Ben Mills.

The First XV have their next Preseason game this Thursday (7th September) against Saracens Amateurs - venue TBC