Sunday 27 th November 2016

Overcast but dry and quite chilly.

Stowmarket Squad;-

Toby Brundell (Captain for the day)

Zed Eldridge

Harry Wilson

Franklin Baker

Tyler Timmis

William Evans

Oliver Lucas

Ethan Lillistone-Highlands

Borrowed; William & Jack.

Game 1: Stowmarket 2 – 2 Norwich.

It was good to play face some different opposition this week and the Stowmarket boys started well against a strong side from
Norwich. The game was very even with both sides making probing runs but with neither side able to break the deadlock in the
first half. The two teams seemed to be quite similar with strong runners & tacklers in the middle and faster players outside.
In the second half the game opened up a little bit as both teams grew in confidence and they both started to create some space
for runners to run through.
It remained very close right to the end and 2 good tries from Ethan secured a 2-2 draw.

Game 2: Diss 0 – 9 Stowmarket.

Stowmarket kept up the good work from the first game and took it into this game. Some very good aggressive driving runs
from the Stow big boys, especially Zed, Harry and Toby, tested the Diss defence which struggled to contain them from the
start. Four tries in the first half left Stow in a very strong position and the coach set the team the challenge of getting through
the second half without conceding a try.
This plan worked well and whenever Diss attacked the Stow players tackled well and the defence never really looked seriously
threatened despite Diss having some quite big lads in their team.
Five more tries from Stow in the second half ended a comprehensive 9-0 victory and it was nice to get back to winning ways.

Game 3: Stowmarket 1 – 2 Bury.

Before the start of the game the Stow coach pointed out that this was a new game against a different team and that the boys had
to put the euphoria of the last game behind them and focus on the next one.
This seemed to sink in and Stow boys did well to contain some strong Bury runners in the opening minutes. Half-way through
the first half an excellent pass from Franklin bypassed the oncoming Bury defenders and William ran around the remaining
defence to finish in the corner giving Stow a 1-0 lead.
At half time the Stow coach again set the team the challenge of getting through the second half without conceding a try.
Bury came out strong in the second half and the Stow boys started to tire. They started to get drawn into the breakdown again
which left space out wide for Bury to attack which they did scoring twice. Stow showed good character and came back
strongly, they had a few chances to score but Bury defended their try line well and Stow couldn’t quite finish off their chances
and eventually ran out of time.

In summary, all of the Stow boys worked hard today to try to implement the targets set by the coach.
A disappointing result against Bury took the shine off a good morning’s rugby and left us all wondering what the result might
have been if we had played Bury 2 nd when the boys seemed to play their best rugby.
There was a bit more shape to the team but there is still room to improve this during the next few weeks and months.

Areas for improvement remain the same as the last few weeks;

- holding positions and not all getting ‘drawn-in’ to the breakdowns and passing the ball out wide in attack once the
space has been created.

- thinking during the game about trying different ways to get around the different teams defences.

Special thanks to our 2 borrowed players; William and Jack.

Next week we welcome Sudbury to Chilton Fields and they have proved to be formidable opposition at the last few meetings
so the boys will have to be at their best to get some good results.