West Norfolk 2nds travelled to Wymondham with yet another hastily put together team that included Richard Bailey & Conor Tuck moving from full back and wing to bolster the back row. Rory played out of position again at Prop and several 3rd team players assisted by making up for missing players.
Despite the forced changes West Norfolk started positively with strong penetrating runs from forwards George Hart, Julian Davis and new second row player Josh Rowlands. Good back row support from Nick Bull and Richard Bailey meant clean ball for Dickie Watersquits to punt deep into Wymondhams 22 with pin point accuracy. Unfortunately West could not turn the early advantage into points and allowed Wymondham to launch their own attack resulting in the play being taken from inside Wymondhams 22 to West’s 22 where from the base of a scrum an uncharacteristic error resulted in the ball spilling free and Wymondhams ever present open side flanker scooping the ball to score their first try in the corner. Unconverted leaving West trailing 0-5.

Not to be deterred by this West backs launched a wave of attacks upon Wymondhams back line defence with Dr Stu, Ali Smith, Saunders and Goldie linking well to work back into Wymomndham territory. From a opposition lineout Josh Rowlands stole the ball and with Fincham, Hart and Rory’s protection worked the maul into the oppositions 22 before Calow whipped the ball out to Goldie to sprint over to score in the corner. Calow missed the conversion bringing the score to 5-5. With the game now settled both sides played good attacking rugby and it’s fair to say both sides defended equally well. The equilibrium was however broken when a clearance kick from Calow missed touch and found Wymondhams’ inside centre who jinxed through Wests defence to score their 2nd try. Converted to bring the score to 05-12.
Captain Watersquits reminded his troops that this was a game West were not going to lose and basic, hard rugby will be played and would result in possession being kept. With this in mind the forwards launched another attack basic pick up & drives from the base of rucks by Davis, Hart and Bailey West again found themselves in Wymondhams 22 where back row player Nick Bull broke away only to be stopped metres short before popping to Dr Stu who cruised over for wests’ 2nd try. Calow missed again bringing the half time score to 10 -12.

Despite the fresh legs of Dr. James and Conor replacing Dr. Stu and Ali Smith, West found themselves becoming complacent with sloppy passes not going to hand and poor decision making resulting in Wymondham gaining possession and the upper hand by scoring 2 quick tries of which 1 was converted bringing the score to 24-10. Waterfield reminded the players of the plan and West immediately replied with Bailey and Saunders both claiming the same try as neither would let the ball go! Calow managed to straighten up and convert this One 17-24.
WEith only 4 minutes left on the clock and West attacking fiercely it was inevitable Wymondham would disintegrate and due to misconduct a Wymondham player was sent off. Wymondham thought they still had a trick up their sleeves when they pulled their old trick of stating their front row had picked up a injury they could only continue with uncontested scrums. This ploy looked as though it would work when in the dying seconds of the game Wymondhams’ scrum half delicately picked the ball from the base of a static scrum and attempted to kick it into touch to end the game only to slice it into the hands of winger Ross who ran round almost all of the opposition to score under the posts. Calow again managed to convert (just) and the whistle was blown brimnging the score to a fair result of 24-24.

West Norfolk 2nds travel to Crusaders next week hopefully back to full strength with players returning from holiday, injury and first team strengthening duties.

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