The Westcliff wind was blowing its usual strong gusts as we arrived to play our Essex Waterfall Cup second round match – pitch flags tilted 45 degrees and the posts swayed back and forth. We had drawn the main pitch and having played here last season, we knew it would be in front of a passionate, partisan, vocal crowd, and so our boys would need to keep their heads and ideally get off to solid start.

Being on a pitch close enough to the changing rooms gave us a rare occasion to have pre-match talk away from the elements, and to run out to kick off to the cheers of our away support group - game on! The Chelmsford Lightning team got off to a flyer, scoring after three minutes – a solid chase from kick-off put us in the opposition 22 with a scrum and running it left then right, and after a few phases being repelled from the try line, the ball was moved out wide to our winger who duly touched down in the corner. After a period of play going back and forth in the middle of the pitch, a cross-field kick from our 10 caught the gusty wind and being collected by the Westcliff winger just short of the line and then grounded under the pressure from our chasers, we found ourselves with a 5m attacking scrum. Again we moved the ball across the width of the field and back again, this time our 8 scoring under the posts. 12-0 after the first quarter. All credit to the Westcliff team for not letting this initial set back get them down, they came out fighting and quickly scored to get themselves back in the game. This score lifted the home team and their support, and they rallied well to prevent us scoring again – in the end, their resilience paid dividends as they not only kept our attacks from adding to the score, but also created penalties in their favour, which pushed us back into our own half. The next score went to the home side, and at 12-10, momentum had shifted. However, as we approached half time, our 10 took an opportunist interception in the midfield and held off the desperate attempts to tackle, scoring and converting with the final play of the half – 19-10.

The second half sadly began with a comedy of errors from our boys - with Chelmsford Lightning receiving the kick-off, we unforgiveably let the ball bounce, with the ball rolling all the way up to our try line – back peddling, we were then caught off-side at the ruck. Advantage was played but not forthcoming, and as the ref came back for the penalty, our defence failed then to line up to the penalty with the Westcliff scrum half not looking the gift horse in the mouth, took the tap and popped it to a forward for an all too easy walk-in.

Back to a slender two points gap, the tension rising, and with the home crowd buoyant, our boys could easily have crumbled. But the boys did well to gather their emotions and responded immediately from the kick off – counter rucking at the first breakdown to turnover the ball, we then drove forward through eight or nine phases before our winger, switching inside off his wing finished off a great team effort with a dive over the line. Our 10 duly slotted the kick from the 15m line to add to the hammer blow. This proved to be a decisive point in the game from which the Chelmsford boys managed to get hold of the ball more, reduce our number of penalties given away, and keep running in tries (with two tries from our flanker, and a second for our 8) to extend our lead and put the result to bed. The final scoreline of 45-17 probably flattered us a bit and certainly doesn't reflect how nervy the game felt at the 30 minute mark.

The third round of the U14 cup is scheduled for 14 January. Next up are friendlies against Woodford and Old Brentwood.