U16 CLACTON 19 - 10 IPSWICH Sunday 19th October 2008

Try Scorers for Ipswich - Sam Tipping & Aidan Tynan.

Match report by George Solomon

After some promising performances early on in the season, there was a feeling of optimism in the changing room as we arrived in Clacton. A confidence inspiring victory would be a brilliant way to start the season after the previous, drawn game against Lowestoft and Yarmouth. How wrong we would be.

Ipswich, with only 16 players to choose from on the day, got off to a poor start, failing to cope with Clacton's powerful and skilful running, and found themselves 12 points down at half time. They deserved to be down, after never really having a patch of domination, although the referee (possible ex-Liverpool footballer from the 80's) wasn't helping matters.

Some encouragement at half time and yet again, it was felt Ipswich could go out and put their superior technical skills into place and eventually the game would swing back our way. 5 minutes later, they weren't so sure. Clacton scored again, with a conversion and Ipswich were now 19 down.

But slowly Ipswich began to pull back into the game. With (very slight) advantage from the hill and wind now in their favour, they were able to kick into the right corner and gained ground from doing this. After a line out and subsequent push on, Sam Tipping picked and powered his way over the line. The emotion was plain to see on his face as he stood up and punched the ball, Jason Robinsonesque in celebration.

Within two minutes Ipswich were back again and this time it was the backs' turn to get in on the action. After a great, powerful run from inside centre Tom Clift, Ipswich could recycle along the line, eventually getting to Aidan who flew in to cap an impressive performance. Unfortunately none of the conversions were scored so it was now 19-10.

Ipswich continued to pressurise and Clacton began to get frustrated...

This eventually boiled over in a maul. Josh did a very good job of setting up a maul and with minimal help slowed down the Clacton push. As it finished, a Clacton player started what seemed to be an unprovoked attack upon Josh and at this point it all began to kick off. The referee (under advisement from the Clacton coach), decided to stop the game 7 minutes early even after sending off the Clacton boy.

The general mood afterwards wasn't that downbeat, as we thought that with a stronger referee and the 7 minutes at the end of the game, we could have gone on to win the game.

New lad Ricky Burrows impressed a lot of people, with his confident running and efficient tackling. This lively looking new-comer has arrived as a forward but was pressed into emergency cover in the backs and played the whole game on the wing. We are grateful.
Sam Tipping looked confident and assured again, and along with his try, played well.
Ben Retter was a winger in the first half to further cover for player shortages in the backs - Meggsy had started but his shoulder injury soon caused him to come off - but then moved to his favoured hooker position in the second half, and enjoyed his first away game with the team.
As ever, Ben G was brilliant, and Aidan assisted him in the backs well.
Tom C volunteered to play hooker and in doing so added bite and power to the front row. His move to the number twelve slot in the second half was a worthy experiment and testament to Tom's versatility.

Full team list:
Lane, Tipping, O'Riley, Grimwood, Cowey, Hitter, Pashler, Sarpal, Cawthorn, Solomon, Tynan, Meggs, Milbourne, Clift, Retter, Burrows.