NC East 1 Chelmsford Bluebirds 45 Lakenham Hewitt 5 The Chelmsford Bluebirds faced Lakenham Hewitt at home and, after a few consecutive losses, were eager to prove themselves.
As is often true of the Bluebirds, they took a while to get their eye in and Lakenham used the opportunity to run roughshod over Chelmsford’s defence and scored an unconverted try in the first two minutes.
The game started off incredibly messily and both sides gave away several penalties.
Both Chelmsford and Lakenham are fighting to avoid the bottom spot in the league and understandably, emotions ran high.
Recent focus for Chelmsford has been on launching a stronger attack and not finding themselves constantly on the defensive and this paid dividends.
Throughout the game, the Bluebirds kept cool, using the breakdown to reset and keep control of the game. The forward packs were fairly evenly matched in scrums and line-outs but the Chelmsford attack made much better use of their forwards and this showed, as the Bluebirds used pods to drive the ball up the pitch and draw in the opposition before getting the ball to the backs.
The back line saw several position changes but Clare Bond had an exceptional game, making massive gains and getting the ball to Tosh and Sorcha Tarpey, who had three tries apiece.
Lakenham were able to make big hits and did pose a worthy defence but they were easily drawn in and the Chelmsford backs were able to consistently find space and outpace the opposition.
Disheartened, Lakenham looked to be tiring and fewer of their tackles landed. This saw forwards break the line on three separate occasions to find the try line.
Vicky Grainger scored the first of the forward tries, showing some incredible hand-offs to cross the line with two Lakenham players hanging off her.
Lou Grimwood, a relatively new player, fought her way from the 5-metre to the try-line but was unfortunately held up.
The last of the forward tries was scored by Annie Coulson, who seemed to surprise herself as she broke through the line in the second half to run in a try from 30 metres out and score under the posts.
Nicola Lopez, recently back from injury, converted three tries.
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