Ipswich teams, Woodbridge and Hadleigh in rugby action

LONDON 2 NORTH

Ipswich83 Stevenage15

IPSWICH ended the first half in command, leading 31-10, thanks to scores from Carlton Littlechild and two tries apiece, courtesy of Chris Blom and Tim Hopkins.

Three of the tries were converted by debutant Will Davies in a first-half in which Brad James was sin-binned and Stevenage scored two unconverted tries.

Within ten minutes of the restart, Ipswich were down to 13 men with Ross Barker and Joe Manning left to rue the consequences of swearing at the referee.

For just a tiny period Stevenage were asking questions that their hosts could not answer.

However, in this company, the home side’s reliance on their backs to score from anywhere was rewarded on 55 minutes when a flowing move saw Tim Hopkins go over for a converted try.

Six more tries followed for Ipswich, with two for Littlechild and Hopkins and one each for Brad James and Liam Brittain. Five of these were converted.

Amoong this score-fest, Stevenage only managed to score one more unconverted try.

EASTERN COUNTIES 1

Ipswich 91

Southwold 5

PLAYING only their second home league game of the season, the YM were keen to right the wrongs of the previous defeat by Newmarket.

YM gave a weak Southwold side a complete rugby masterclass.

From the off it was clear that the strong YM pack were going to over-power Southwold at every opportunity.

The YM forwards clinically executed scrums and line-outs with precision and cleared ruck after ruck to provide Jamie Curtis with the best ball he has had all season.

The YM took five to ten minutes to get going, a sole negative on a day full of positives.

The mercurial Carlton Ford has found the form of his life and started proceedings with a great finish, following some great phase play by the YM.

Following a great turnover by the ever-impressive Sam Fox and some well-worked phases, Curtis dropped a clever box-kick behind the Southwold defence and Kenny reacted to charge down the attempted clearance and score the second try of the afternoon.

As ever, Elliston was regularly adding the extras with the boot.

Shortly afterwards Ford added his second try of the day, before Ricky Lea raced away to score in the corner.

The forwards continued to turn the screw and Curtis fed Kenny for one of the easiest tries of the afternoon.

The last try of the first-half was scored following a clean break. Lea passed to Howard and he wriggled over in the corner.

The YM ruthlessly set about the second half with a keen thirst for more tries and Ipswich’s backs would score a further eight tries in this half, including Ford’s hat-trick.

To give Southwold their due they battled hard to the end and were rewarded with a well-worked try following some good forward work.

Travis Kenny also managed to complete his hat-trick to cap a successful day for the YM’s back three.

Hadleigh 12

Woodbridge Warriors 26

Woodbridge won 26-12 at Hadleigh and got off to the perfect start when Josh Kimber put them six points up with two penalties.

Woodbridge’s Josh Bruce and Kimber kicked from hand to force some effective chasing from their forwards.

Hadleigh, playing against the wind and into the sun, kicked less, opting to run and scrum with Grant, Englebracht and Halls repeatedly driving at the visitors.

Woodbridge were playing too much rugby in their own half until Bruce Box kicked up field for Jamie Smith to gather and off-load to Kimber who scored and converted.

Hadleigh reacted, Pissarro distributing well, with dangerous runs from Halls, Likuceve, Hazleman and Crisp.

Woodbridge’s forwards began to scrimmage better, lower and tighter and Simon Codd, Neil Scopes and Jez Hannon worked hard.

This forced a number of penalties in defence from which Kimber took another three points.

As the wind subsided, Hadleigh got back in the game in the second half, using their width from a maul and sub Van Rensburg exploited a penalty to run through weak defence to score, Grant converting.

Hadleigh’s full-back Phillips then kicked to his opposite number Kimber who ran then offloaded to Luke Garnham, who fed Taff Lloyd for the score

But Hadleigh increased the pace, using their centres effectively and Van Rensburg ran some good attacking lines.

Stewart Digweed exploited loose ball for Kimber and Bruce to kick through and force their hosts to touch down.

From the drop out, Digweed again fell on the ball and Jones drove, yielding a scrum from which Scopes carried for Dan Taylor to score.

Hadleigh were not to be denied however and ran waves of attack from wing to wing until Likuceve scored from a defensive scrum in the Warriors’ 22.

But some important line-outs from Jones and Hannon kept Woodbridge out of trouble in the final minutes.