EASTERN COUNTIES 1 - Harwich & Dovercourt 31 Hadleigh 12

FOLLOWING two successive defeats, Harwich & Dovercourt bounced back with a bonus point victory that puts them fourth in the league.

The game was also treated as a Suffolk Plate double-header and therefore saw the hosts progress to the next round of that competition.

Harwich were determined to put the disappointment of last week’s defeat to bottom team, Thurston, behind them, and Sam Male gave his side the lead with a penalty on 15 minutes.

Ten minutes later, and after more pressure, Ed Mayhew passed to Richard Woods who then fed the ball to Jay Hatcher who scored a try.

Male added the extras with his assured kicking Harwich went further ahead within a minute of the restart when Hatcher ran through the middle of the pitch and fed the ball to Sean Mills, who, in turn, passed to Nick Faliveno to score. Male converted the extras.

Two minutes later, Harwich extended their lead when Hatcher made another drive and fed the ball to prop Clark Simpson who scored superbly in the corner. With Male converting again, Harwich were now 24-0 up.

Harwich kept pressing and with 20 minutes to go Faliveno made a break from his own half and fed the ball to Male who scored by the posts.

With Male converting his own score, Harwich had the bonus point and looked safe at 31-0 up.

Harwich took their foot off the pedal and let Hadleigh back before the end, into the game, scoring two tries and a conversion.