Haverhill show superiority from the start
By Jim Morgan at Castle Fields on Monday, 9th September 2013.
The first scrum from Haverhill showed that Thorpeness were going to have a tough day in the office. Some sections of good play by the visitors were, in the most, spoilt by bad handling which Haverhill seized on.
New signing Tony Becker looked very good in the fly half position, although some kicking from hand was a touch wayward. His command of the back line was a pleasure to watch.
With a very impressive Simon Lester at scrum half and the ever-reliant Chris Flannery at number eight combining superbly, Haverhill were able to release their centres of Micky Lansdowne and Monty Beaton regularly to create havoc with the Thorpeness defence.
Simon Potter and Ricky Brown were awesome in the loose play, with the front five anchoring the set play brilliantly. The inclusion of Hamish Stewart in the second row gave Haverhill some extra height which was used in a number of turnover plays.
It took Haverhill 25 minutes to get on the board with a Potter penalty conversion, then two minutes later a fantastic 40m Lansdowne run released full back Woods for an under post try and Potter conversion for 10-0. With strong winds, this was the only conversion for Haverhill in the game.
On 29 minutes a great Lester break-out and cleverly-timed pass released Lansdowne again. The Lester loop round saw Lansdowne return the favour for Lester to score for 15-0
Thorpeness finally got into the Haverhill half and ripped a Haverhill line ball to release their backs for a score in the corner for 15-5.
On 38 minutes, Lester and Lansdowne linked again to earn good yards and a storming Beaton crashed over in the corner for 20-5 at the turn.
With Haverhill dominant, a lackadaisical pass on 42 minutes saw the Thorpeness number eight intercept and run 60metres for an under-posts converted try and 20-12. This was their last time of threatening the Haverhill line.
Haverhill then proceeded to outplay Thorpeness in all facets of the game with lovely work between backs and forwards creating tries for Potter on 48 minutes, Joe Brown on 53 minutes and a second try for Beaton on 68 minutes for 35-12.
Beaton scored his hat trick on 73 minutes after a superb run by Ricky Brown and Flannery destroyed the visitors defence for 40-12 and Joe Brown got his second with three minutes to go to see the final score at 45-12.
With many try-scorers man of the match can be difficult, but for his control of the feed from the back of the scrum and ruck to the back line, creating most of the plays for the tries, man of the match went to Simon Lester.
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