The Saxons made the short trip down the A13 to Thurrock in round three of their Regional Anglia 2 campaign, a place they have struggled to come away victorious in recent years. The hosts headed into this one off the back of a defeat at the hands of Saffron Walden.
The game started in the balance; however, the Saxons enjoyed the better field position early on and looked dangerous with ball in hand. The Saxons made several early visits into the hosts 22 and after multiple penalties, Ben Lloyd stepped forward to register the first points of the afternoon to make it 0-3. The visitors continued to mount the pressure as an advantage was played from a well worked driving maul, the backline played with freedom as they broke the hosts front line of defence, a simple finish was expected, disapprovingly the final pass went to ground and into touch. This was repeated later in the half where the final pass was knocked on just before the line. The hosts crept back into the game working their way into the Saxons half and began to win the collisions, getting front foot ball which resulted in two tries from close range, one converted. The Saxons were down to 14, some would say a harsh decision for a supposed high tackle. The half began to wind down, but a glimmer of hope appeared as the Thurrock full back made a strange decision to kick from his goal line, with the rest of his team offside, the Saxons launched one final attack. The pressure became too much for the hosts and the Saxons secured a try for their first half efforts, 12-8 at half time.
Words were clearly had at half time, frustration was evident on the faces of the coaches and players alike as they head into the changing rooms at the break, but hope restored because of the try on the half time whistle. The next twenty minutes was nothing short of pure dominance by the Saxons, at times Thurrock simply couldn’t lay a finger on the men in brown and white. Chris Vaughan finished off a fine set piece move beautifully assisted by Kalani Parkinson, before securing his hattrick 11 minutes later. The driving maul was superbly executed all afternoon with John Kenward securing another to his personal tally and Lewis Holmes powered over from close range. Space was appearing everywhere, Ben Lloyd found space out wide for winger Tom Day to enjoy, causing the Thurrock back 3 problems. The Saxons raced into an emphatic second half lead, before the hosts made use of some poor discipline to enter the Saxons half, but the visitors defence held firm, there was no way through.
The Saxons scored 32 unanswered points, a terrific response to a frustrating opening forty minutes. 6 tries in total, and it arguably could and should have been more! A culmination of points missed from the tee and handling errors, but regardless an excellent win on the road at a tricky place to conquer which had a real eighteen-man effort behind it.
Next week the Saxons are back on the road as they visit Saffron Walden.
