HARWICH & Dovercourt will travel to Southwold in the final of the Suffolk Plate (2pm) after the two teams emerged victorious from their semi-final encounters at the weekend.

Ipswich YM 20 Harwich & Dovercourt 24

THIS match started well for Harwich, Sam Male notching a penalty after YM were deemed offside.

On 16 minutes, Harwich were awarded another penalty which Male dispatched from the halfway line.

Male then added two further penalties and the Eastern Counties 1 team looked to be cruising.

YM put pressure on the Harwich line and scored the first try of the game right on half time, before starting the second half like a different team.

Within a minute their big forwards drove over for another try.

With the difficult conversion slotted over the bar it seemed that Harwich had thrown away all their good work.

Ipswich were now in the ascendancy and scored a penalty.

With time running out, Harwich just couldn’t break through.

It took a great move by Harwich, with ten minutes left, to get a score.

From a line out Hatcher took the ball, Faliveno joined the line and passed to Joe Francis who scored a converted try.

They stretched their lead when Edgar found Blacker who finished well in the corner.

With the last move of the game, YM scored in the corner but missed the conversion.

Southwold 38 Haverhill 3

SOUTHWOLD scored a penalty within a minute but Haverhill were not ready to give up the ghost in this game.

The Haverhill scrum was awesome and Southwold never really got anything out of the set piece during the contest.

However, Southwold turned over Haverhill breakdown ball at will but it took them another 23 minutes to score again, with a converted try.

The referee then stamped his authority on the game, sin-binning Simon Potter for not releasing the tackled player.

From the penalty, the ball was laid off to the huge Southwold prop. A great tackle attempt from Dom Farnell left the latter flat on his back as Southwold added to their burgeoniing lead.

Southwold then scored when their scrum half ran 50 metres to score under the posts.

Haverhill got three points from a penalty, but Southwold figured that Haverhill’s kicking was weak and so were infringing on every Haverhill attack.

From the restart Haverhill did not gather and were punished on 34 minutes for 31-3.

Within a minute, the frustration of another Southwold player in the wrong place led to a melee but, where cards should have been shown, the referee blew five minutes early for half time.

On 55 minutes, great turn over ball in the scrum saw Jury released, but the ball in was dropped and the Southwold fly half scored under the posts for 38-3.

Jury finally crossed the whitewash on 70 minutes and three minutes later, with yet another huge altercation due to punches thrown, the whistle was blown for time.