Manor 3s batter South Woodham 2s.

After Manor’s big local derby win against Campion last week the team were keen to continue their run of form with south Woodham standing in the way. A long journey to essex was only made worse by being stuck in traffic and Cushy forgetting to take his happy pills that morning and moaning at everything possible.

Most of the team got there in time but unfortunately our car managed to role in 15 minutes before kick off after having to ask a South Woodham OAP cyclist the way. A very quickly hashed warm up and team run whilst south woodham dumped copious amounts of earth on the pond that had formed on the 22 and Manor were ready for Kick off.

Manor had a few players out from last week and included a first game in the 3s for James Sellek at flanker after impressing for the 4s. In the backs Manor were quite short and Bobby continued to be Mr Utility by playing centre this week whilst I started my first game for 3 months in the very unfamiliar positon of full back.

The game kicked off with a good chase from manor and some good phases being played. Eventually after a scrum on the 22 Franny picked up and carried through a few tackled before offloading to Harry Bone who broke stepped through before being thrown over the try line by franny. 5-0. Manor then got back to half time and prepared themselves for the south woodham comeback. But Manor, with the journey still in their legs decided this wasn’t to be and ran in try after try in the first half. The second Manor try was worth of note as an excellent team try. Superb handling skills and support play resulted in Bobby breaking through and then offloading to Brad to score under the posts. Credit to South woodham who got up to the manor try line but only superb defence from the manor pack stopped them from scoring. At half time the score was about 30-0 and manor were in command.

Changes were made and Tomcat went off for a rest and Sam came on in the row. Harry Bone, after his first game in 3 months needed a rest to so the 3rd team manager, Werner came on. After playing about 80 minutes of rugby in the last 2 years Werner was still a little bit rusty and Cushy had to show his agileness to catch the ball and at one point had to threaten to take werner out (whilst the ball was on mid-flight towards cushys forehead) before Werner found his mojo again. But that didn’t stop the scoring and Manor continued to run in try after try. Brad didn’t seem to want to make the lead to big so graciously decided to help South Woodham by missing as many conversions as he could including some which were in front of the posts.

Some of the memorable manor tries came from the shocked Dave Dennis who did the front row proud and managed to somehow score (The distance of this score varied from Daves estimation of 40 metres to everyones elses of 5 metres out). Ciaran scored a good one after Brad shocked everyone by showing he had pace running down the wing. In the end manor finished the game with another try and the scoreline stopped at 74-0. A fantastic and clinical performance from Manor 3s.

Credit must go to South Woodham who fought to the end. In particular their young full back kept on making tackle after tackle to stop our attacks.

Humorous moments in the game included; Paul Porter asking to play loosehead this week and finding himself facing the biggest tighthead props around in each half, Keeny being picked on by the opposition as usual for being a poser, Werner asking me to play scrumhalf when he was on the wrong side of the pitch and really didn’t fancy running across and Cushy for almost running as much as he talked during the game.

Man of the match is a tough one this week with everyone having a very good game. A few worth mentions go to; James Sellek for a very good all round game, Franny for making some great charges up the field, Sam for a big impact off the bench chopping down some of the big south woodham forwards and Brad and Bobby who linked well in the centres. But on the whole cushy probably just edged it after making a lot of breaks and will now be insufferable when he reads this!

Scorers
Brad, Ciaran, Tom W (2), Harry Bone, Keeny (2), Cushy (2), Bobby (2), Dave D

Next week Manor have a week off before taking on Harlow at the manor on the 21st February!

Tom Winkworth