Stowmarket 11 Southend Saxons 33
Phoenix Park
Regional 2 Anglia

After an unorthodox preseason, Phoenix Park finally saw the curtain come up on the newly formed Regional 2 Anglia league campaign with the arrival of Southend Saxons for their delayed season opener. Knowing that they are tipped as one of the favourites to make a promotion push this year. With a productive and tough preseason under their belts there was much excitement in the squad to go at it against opposition who are unfamiliar.

With only a single preseason game on their record, there was naturally some rustiness still in the tank which showed from the first kick off. Stowmarket fumbled the catch and then conceded a scrum penalty from their first competitive set piece of the season. Southend then pulled off a slick training ground interplay move between the hooker and front lifter to crash over for the first score to make it 0-7 inside three minutes.

Not to be deterred and showing great resilience, Stow then found their feet. Making in roads through some strong forward carries and an intelligent and accurate kicking game from captain Dan Garrard and Jonathon Mann at fly half to cause the away side to lose ground. Southend responded with some intelligent backs play off set pieces and caused pressure to build on the home side which then resulted in Stow debutant Scott Dunbar receiving a yellow card for not being 10 meters back inside the red zone. Southend were unable to capitalise on this and it was infact the home side who started to move up a gear. Again, the Stow kicking game and forward pack play produced some gain line and territory success, with Southend coughing up a few penalties which Jonathon Mann made sure went through the uprights. The score after the yellow card period stood at 6-7 and it was game on. Stow were further assisted by a Southend player receiving a yellow card. The half time score was 6-14 after Southend again initiated a bit of intelligent Rugby to make some gaps in the midfield.

The second half was a real contest and Stowmarket were having purple patches in the game which showed their credentials and strength. The line out in particular began to really put pressure on Southend and a number of mauls and quick ball from the breakdown gave the backs a platform to get forward. Within ten minutes both sides had traded tries, with lock Ali Vivian running twenty meters with much work to do before powering over after a strong carry and offload by Matt Edison. Half way through the second half and the score was 11-21 to Southend. Sam Cross was frustrated to not add a further try to Stow’s tally after an adjudged forward pass stopped him from finishing his line break to score.

Despite the lack of match time Stowmarket continued to hit hard in the contact and be competitive at the breakdown to disrupt Southend and put on the pressure. A number of fumble balls and errors being coughed up which allowed Stow to go searching for more points. Southend however regrouped and added a couple more tries to secure the bonus point and finish the scoring at 11-33.

The final score showed that Stowmarket have really dug in during a tricky and unpredictable preseason and come out of the other end able to produce some of the Rugby that will give any opposition problems. After the game Director of Rugby, Ash Cook said:

‘All things considered there are more positives than negatives for us to take forward. We caused Southend a number of problems in some key areas that we have been working on but most of all we have stuck to the processes that we have worked on during pre season and the players have started to see the reward in that. Our try was classic Stowmarket. We know what we are good at and we want to continue to show that throughout this season. I am particularly pleased to see that the lads didn’t show huge signs of fatigue or lack of preparation for contact after a very unusual and frustrating preseason. We are looking forward to the Norwich game at their place next weekend.’

The man of the match was hooker George Turner, who continues to carry on his good form off the back of being named Coaches Player of the Season last time out.