Manor 4s make it 4 from 6

Three wins from our last five outings was a good return for the side, and the instructions were clear: keep doing what we've been doing!

Steelers won the toss and chose their end so Manor fly half Jake kicked off. A good high kick was chased by Manor and reclaimed in the air ahead of a hesitant KX line. Possession wasn't translated into points though and the first 10 minutes saw mistakes on both sides giving possession away too easily.

Manor were just edging the territory battle though and after stringing together a few phases of play formed a ruck 5 metres out. Captain Morton saw an opportunity like never before and picked the ball up and darted (lumbered slowly) for the line and grounded the ball. Well, that's what the referee saw anyway. Try given, conversion missed, 5-0 Manor.

The Manor forwards seemed to draw strength from one of their own recording on the score board and began to utterly dominate at scrum time. First we shoved their whole pack backwards off their own ball. From there we then won a penalty on their 5m line and the scrum again kicked into gear. Seb hooked well and quickly to get the ball to Ugo's feet where he controlled. We moved forwards with Frosty being really nice to their loose head and gradually the ball, still at Ugo's feet, was over line and he pounced (fell) on it to claim his 2nd try in as many games. Conversion missed, 10-0.

This was enough action for Frosty for one day and he retired, boots freshly cleaned, to support from the side line, much to the relief of the ref. Chris Hurry came on to replace him.

The confidence was flowing through the team now and the backs began to show they wanted to join the fun. Scrum half Saunders got to a breakdown inside 5 seconds (which was being strictly monitored by the ref) and he fed Jake who fed Bobby who fed Jake again who had looped around. Jake dummied the defender and straightened his run to score a good try. Conversion missed again, 15-0 Manor.

About this time Bobby Grace turned his ankle nastily and had to leave. Joliffe was brought onto the wing with Mark Le Vallee moving to his preferred position of outside centre. Ugo then took a knock to his face and was also removed in place of Jay, back after a few weeks away.

One more try was scored before half time but I'm afraid I missed it having had one of my contact lenses knocked out a few seconds before. I think it was Jake who got this one as well, could be wrong, apologies! The conversion was missed again though and we went into half time with a comfortable 20-0 lead.

At the break Saunders removed himself to bring on Waqqash. Saunders was later seen wearing somebody else's hoodie and resembling Papa Smurf, speak to Ann Millie for details.

Shortly into the second half 8 months with only 40 minutes of rugby caught up with Captain Morton who left the fray for Makowski. That left us with 4 subs left to bring on and only one more replacement available. The KX skipper had said before the game that he wasn't happy for us to use all our subs, despite the fact that this might give him an advantage with so many changes for Manor.

With victory all but attained Manor went for the throat in the second half. First to score was David Ridewood after the ball was neatly moved to the wing through the hands of the backs. Mark Le Vallee showed why he's been asking to play centre by combining well with Reggie. The big Kiwi no.12 drew the tacklers and offloaded to Mark who touched down near the posts. Having seen it work so well a minute before Waqqash and Jake had no hesitation in feeding them again and a repeat performance resulted in the same outcome. One of these three tries was converted, I'm afraid my contact lens situation hadn't resolved and I forget which, but with about 10 minutes left to play Manor led 37-0.

KX had battled hard all day and seemed determined to go back with something to show for their efforts. This they got with 2 tries of their own bring it 37-10 with a few minutes left.

The last change for Manor saw Chris Reay come on to the wing to join brother Adam at full back. The family connection worked well and Chris got the final score of the day. The second of eight conversion attempts by Jake went over to make the final score 44-10 to Manor 4s.

The unused subs on the day deserve a mention; Harry, Chris & Sammy, apologies you didn't get on, was not my intention, come back next week and you'll get another chance!

For his two try performance as well as being involved in everything Jake Taylor was voted Man of the Match. Billericay Blunder went to Steve 'Hollywood' 'Canvey Island' Coggins for the quite absurd decision to attempt a left footed box kick. Yep, that happened.

Celebration/penalty pints for first tries for the Manor were also handed out to Morton, Jake, Mark & Chris, well done to all.

We travel to Old Cooperians next week for a big game against the League leaders! UTM!