SKIPPER Matt Edison will rightly take the plaudits for scoring an incredible five tries but he was quick to praise all his players on a fantastic display, as Bury achieved a remarkable feat – 29 consecutive victories in all competitions over a 12-month period.

Bury dominated almost from the off, but up until just before the hour mark, Colchester had stayed in touch through a combination of dogged defence and pride. However, the pace and intensity of Bury finally proved too much and they ran in five unanswered tries.

Both sides began the match with positive intentions and, in fact, James Crozier had the chance to give Colchester the lead after five minutes, but his penalty attempt was dragged wide.

Bury slowly began to turn the screw, dominating possession and spending long periods deep in home territory.

The desperation in the defence saw Colchester scrum-half Chris Withers sent to the sin bin for kicking the ball out of a ruck.

Bury used their additional man to good advantage. Centre Kenny Eggars – a constant thorn in the home side’s midfield all day – gained ground and then a penalty following a typical barnstorming run. The penalty was kicked to the corner and Edison powered his way over.

For the remainder of the half, Bury starved Colchester of possession, forcing them to defend wave after wave of attacks.

Martin and Eggars were the key architects in most of Bury’s attacks giving them some great go forward.

Just before the break, Bury doubled their lead.

Right wing, Phil Gouldie cut a great angle to take the ball close to the Colchester line and when the ball came back, Eddison proved unstoppable from 15 metres as he too ran a great line to score by the posts.

Despite the closeness of the score, the visiting faithful felt confident that with the wind now at their backs, Bury would not let the lead slip.

The omens did not look good for Colchester when, after just five minutes, Eddison scored a quite staggering third try.

With Colchester on the attack, the No 8 managed, in one action, to tackle and then rip the ball from Calum Irving.

The skipper then raced 45 metres, out-sprinting both wing and full-back to score to the left of the posts. Martin added the conversion.

Colchester dusted themselves down and, through a series of close quarter drives, enjoyed a period of play where they dominated possession.

Bury lost flank forward Ben Radmill to the sin-bin for persistent off side and, just as the visitors had in the first half, Colchester used their numerical advantage to score.

Prop, James Mitchell powered his way over from close-range after another series of pick and shifts had got the All Blacks to within striking distance.

The successful conversion made it 19-7 and Colchester had hope.

However Bury were quick to douse the flames, Edison leading by example.

The Colchester set piece was clearly being out played and a seven-man Bury scrum was so stable that it allowed Gavin Hogg’s team to perform a training ground backs move for a glorious try.

Will Martin looped round his centres into acres of space, and he passed onto Gouldie who fixed the final defender to send Krammer racing in.

At 26-7, Colchester’s resolve was broken and Bury were now back to full strength.

Another attacking scrum allowed the dominant visiting forwards the chance to create a slight wheel to give Edison the space to peel off the scrum.

The skipper still had 30 metres to go and work to do, but he shrugged off two half-hearted tackles to run in an incredible fourth try.

The 40-point barrier was reached with a superb team try.

The ball was spread from one side of the field to the other before the number of defenders ran out. Incredibly it was Edison again on the end of the move for his fifth try.

With just two minutes remaining Bury earned a penalty that they kicked into the Colchester 22.

The ball was sent off the top directly to the three-quarters. Another slick move cut the defence to ribbons and when the ball came back, Radmill ran through a gaping chasm to score by the posts.

From the restart, Bury attacked again and Eggars raced clear.

A superb off load out of the back of his hand put Gouldie into space and he drew the final defender for the supporting Radmill to score another superb try.

Martin’s excellent conversion, his seventh out of eight attempts, made the final score 54-7.