Eastern Counties 1: Harwich & Dovercourt 29 Woodbridge Warriors 6

DESPITE some lousy kick offs, an early missed penalty and disallowed try, Harwich & Dovercourt applied great pressure against their visitors who were playing uphill, against the wind.

The Harwich back row of Cairnes, Edgar and Mayhew harried and pressed their opposite numbers who did a great job to resist them.

Warriors’ Rose in particular had a phenomenal tackle rate and Cooke did well to gather ball at the back of the Woodbridge scrum.

In the second quarter, however, the pressure showed and the visitors’ defence slowed to allow fast hands from the Harwich three-quarters to give their ever-troublesome winger Hutchins a try on the blind-side.

Woodbridge pulled three points back from a Barton penalty and maintained their discipline to put in some threatening runs from Pearson and Smith.

However, Harwich’s forwards, driven by Manning, reacted sharply to give Hutchins his second try just before the break.

Male took three points early after the restart which was quickly matched by Sherief for Woodbridge.

Woodbridge lost a few players to injury – notably Rose and Andy Smith – their line-outs continued to be tricky and it was from a lineout that Harwich moved the ball quickly across field to Faluvino who scored five minutes from time.

Their forwards then drove the hard working Hatcher over under the posts on the whistle – both tries converted by Fox.