Wymondham 24 v Woodbridge Warriors 0

Heavy overnight rain hadn’t dampened Wymondham’s enthusiastic start to this mid-table skirmish. Penalised in the first scrum they defended a long kick by Woodbridge fly-half JP Hart, wing Chris Collins-Reed squelching up the centre field. Woodbridge countered, No8 Jono Cooke kicked through for the ball to go dead before Wyndham’s Josh Wright put in a great dash, the ball went wide through Darren Wilson for wing and colts player Anwar Bouilouta to score. Moments later and Wymondham No 10 Josh Cousens enabled a quick lineout from the restart return which caught the Warriors (and this photographer!) napping as Bouilouta splashed over again. Wymondham were clearly playing the conditions better than the visitors who had a bash up the middle only for a penalty to relinquish possession. The locals moved out left with hooker Connor Aidrie beating prop Manuel Aroza to put Collins-Reed over. Woodbridge had another go, Reece Monk handy on the wing but a penalty again frustrated. A text book Wymondham attacking 22 line-out was followed by a maul from which flanker Ethan Holmwood broke and scored. The rest of the half saw a number of sustained attacks in the visitors 22 that were well-defended by 14 men in messy conditions.

Woodbridge restarted with gusto, penetrating the home 22 and forcing a poor touch but Wright countered, supported by Bouilouta and Alex Wigney. Woodbridge kept the long kicks coming from Hart and Monk and had more territory and ball, Aldis Salavejs, Tom Stokes and Ed Banthorpe especially, but the home defences were strong and retained control of the set pieces, Liam Browning reliable in the line-out, making it hard for the visitors to maintain their flow. Luke Wattam had a great opportunity using speed to break the line but the pass was intercepted as Wymondham’s centre Jamie Hunter grubbed to turn play again. A lot of scrums reflected the conditions as both teams struggled in the gloop. In the end Woodbridge reversed the territory stats and wallowed in the home end for 85% of the second half but to no avail – the first 20 mins had sealed a just and sticky victory for Wymondham.