London 2 North: Rochford 31 Chelmsford 7

Chelmsford coach Eddie Gooby was a frustrated man as he had 11 front line players missing, either injured or unavailable for selection, and this must be a worrying aspect for him.

Already this season, he has used 35 players and there is a need for players to show a greater commitment towards training, otherwise the season is going to drift away for them.

This was now their third loss in the last four games, after seeing the squad put together a seven-match winning sequence from September to November.

Chelmsford started the brighter and put together some good attacking play but, within five minutes, the home scored the first of their five tries, Rochford breaking out from their own 22 and running the length of the pitch to score an effort, which was converted.

Matters got worse when a clearance kick failed to find touch and a good break down the left-hand side, with support on the inside, saw Rochford score a well-taken try that wasn’t converted.

Rochford added a third try which was converted and effectively the game over as far as Chelmsford were concerned.

Prop, Phil Dechamp was then yellow-carded for retaliation and Rochford scored two tries against 14 men to take the score to 31-0.

The penalty count was four to one in Chelmsford’s favour, but they failed to capitalise on this.

However, they did eventually score a try when Seb Hill made a good run and, with the ball going through the phases, second row Nick Sany was on hand to score in the corner, with the try being converted by Rhys Mason.