NC East 1 Bury Foxes 40 Harwich Owls 0 The flying Bury Foxes welcomed undefeated Harwich Owls to the Haberden in what promised to be a colossal top-of-the-table clash in NC East 1, writes Ashley Cook.

East Anglian Daily Times: Bury's Sinead Collins looks to break the Harwich defence. Picture: SHAWN PEARCEBury's Sinead Collins looks to break the Harwich defence. Picture: SHAWN PEARCE (Image: Archant)

The Foxes were looking to avenge their 24-7 opening day of the season defeat to the same opposition and close the gap at the top of the table.

And the match started at a ferocious pace with Harwich enjoying some early possession and settling into their game plan. Despite their possession, they did not enjoy much field position or gain line success thanks to the heavily organised and determined Foxes’ defence.

After some slick hands to move the ball wide, Lucy Kerr went motoring through a gap and accelerated hard to finish under the posts.

With Harwich then pressing just metres from the Bury line, Emily-Jane Stearn stripped the ball clean from the arms of an attacker before off-loading to scrum-half Georgie Palmer, who skipped past two defenders before running 70 metres to make the score 14-0.

East Anglian Daily Times: Bury's EJ Stearn powers through against the Harwich Owls. Picture: SHAWN PEARCEBury's EJ Stearn powers through against the Harwich Owls. Picture: SHAWN PEARCE (Image: Archant)

With confidence growing and the game now firmly in the control of the home side, the tries began to flow. Palmer, not satisfied with running 70 metres, took a quick tap penalty deep inside the Foxes half and ran 80 more to score.

The Foxes now firmly had their tails up and were starting to move this arm wrestle of a game firmly on to their side. Katie Roberts at fly-half was a key cog in the Bury machine with her excellent distribution and communication skills, which eventually allowed Stearn to get the ball in space, run round two defenders, and accelerate through a gap to score from the half way line making the half-time score 26-0.

The Foxes were under no illusions that a quality Harwich side would simply lie down and let the fixture run away from them.

But the Bury second half performance was excellent however, with every single player making themselves unplayable in defence with some shuddering tackling and excellent line speed to suffocate the Harwich possession.

East Anglian Daily Times: Bury Foxes' Georgie Palmer makes a tackle against the Harwich Owls. Picture: SHAWN PEARCEBury Foxes' Georgie Palmer makes a tackle against the Harwich Owls. Picture: SHAWN PEARCE (Image: Archant)

Another great set of interplay and off-loading saw Stearn break again before giving a pass to Sinead Collins who stormed through to go under the posts to secure the bonus point. Stearn then grabbed her second from 40 metres to complete the rout and send Bury top.