West Norfolk 2nds made the trip to Norwich with a surfeit of strong forwards but an inexperienced back division. In fact the late call off of Alex Singleton lead to the inside centre position being filled by second row forward Sean Brundle and great credit to him for taking on the challenge. The giant front row of Moore, Bridges and Savage more or less guaranteed supply of good scrummage ball and the mobility of Nimmo, Rory and Davis in the back row suggested that they may be able to dominate possession and negate Norwich’s expected experience and pace advantage in the backs.

West Norfolk started brightly gaining the upper hand in early exchanges and the greatest concern seemed to relate to giving away a succession of penalties. However, a missed kick for touch resulted in the Norwich backs getting their first taste of possession and they made no bones about using the complete width of the field and putting their very speedy right wing into a position to easily outpace the West Norfolk defence to score in the corner.

Long periods of spirited play by West Norfolk enabled good territorial gains but two further home side tries, carbon copies of the first further exposed a gulf in pace and experience between the back divisions. West Norfolk were further handicapped when Andy Saunders went off inured following a comprehensive tackle after restart.

A series of West Norfolk drives close to the Norwich line were narrowly resisted but a second 5 metre scrum in quick succession proved too much for the home side to defend and Davis made the touch down to put the visitors on the scoreboard before half time.

Waterfield and Nimmo’s strategy of attacking the blind side produced some success in the second half with some bullocking runs by Bridges, Savage and Nimmo releasing Sean Brundle and Ali Smith to gain good ground . The main fire power however remained with the home side and a further two tries in quick succession put the result beyond doubt.

Good work by Richard Bailey and Connor Tuck put Sean Brundle away on the outside and an accomplished hand off enabled him to go over in the corner to keep the score respectable.

Norwich’s ability to put points on the board could easily have lead to capitulation by West Norfolk, but the team spirit which epitomizes this group kept them battling through to the end.





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