The game started with lovely rugby weather- a gentle breeze with light rain and a soft pitch. The visitors showed their intentions early with some aggressive pressure but both sides visited each others 22 in the first 15 minutes. On paper, this Kelvedon side should have overpowered Witham but the home teams tackling was phenomenal, reducing Kelvedons phases to only a few yards at a time. When they did break through, man of the match fullback Mike Hill did not let them pass. We knew who their impact runners were and made sure they were halted every time. As the rain got heavier, some of the handling suffered and this cost Witham a couple of chances early on. Eventually the pressure told and Kelvedon managed to open the scoring. They doubled their lead soon afterwards after benefitting from a couple of penalties close to our line. But Witham were far from out of this. A huge clearance kick by Coxy got us close to their line where Ryan Logue, Sam Holloway and Darren Smith were all halted in their attempts to cross the line. Tugster had a go too but it was not to be. Eventually, we were repelled and as the half came to a close, Kelvedon scored again.
The second half followed a similar pattern with the visitors unable to break the Witham resolve. They did score 3 more tries but never enjoyed the rout that I'm sure they were hoping to inflict on us. We may have been beaten but only on the scoreboard. It must be noted that some new players played their hearts out for us. Ben Kennard, Reece with the stabilisers, Reece with the squirts, Ben Freeze and Tom Banks all did themselves proud.