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SUFFOLK PLATE SEMI-FINAL: Southwold 38 Haverhill 1st XV 8. Match report.

Three-nil up inside one minute, Southwold thought that it was going to be an easy ride, but Haverhill had other ideas.

The Haverhill scrum was awesome again and Southwold in the whole game never really got anything out of the set piece - but this is about as far as it went.

It was immediately noticeable that the opposition trained together, turning Haverhill breakdown ball over at will – sometimes through nefarious means. Haverhill were exposed here and in the backs, with a centre partnership of Carl Anderson and Mike Woods playing out of their usual positions.

It took Southwold another 23 minutes to get on the board again, finally breaking forward where good, sustained flowing rugby finally did for the Haverhill defence and the line was crossed for a converted try and 10-0.

Two minutes later, the returning Ransome popped a hamstring, to be replaced by Dan Harris and then the referee stamped his mark, going to his pocket and sin-binning Simon Potter for not releasing the tackled player.

This was early in the game and setting the bar high for the discipline of what is prescribed in the laws as the 'professional foul' where a player infringes deliberately to slow the game down to allow his team mates to regroup. It is there to stop cheating.

From the penalty, the ball was laid off to the huge Southwold prop. A great tackle attempt from Dom Farnell left the latter flat on his back and a score under the posts for 17-0.

In high winds, kicking into the wind allows the ball to hang, giving your players time to make ground, so when the restart was kicked with the wind and straight out, allowing Southwold a scrum on halfway, it was only Haverhill’s fault when the Southwold scrum half squirmed out of the back and ran 50 metres through the Haverhill defence to score under the posts for 24-0 on 31 minutes.

Haverhill got three points from a penalty, but the Southwold team had figured that Haverhill’s kicking was weak and so were infringing on every Haverhill attack.

The referee warned them to stop, but did not go to his pocket for these offences, where a card count could have easily been four at one stage. Consistency is the benchmark of refereeing and once Southwold figured they were safe, it was a free-for-all on the professional foul.

From the restart Haverhill did not gather and were punished on 34 minutes for 31-3. Within a minute, the frustration of another Southwold player in the wrong place led to a melee and again, where cards should have been shown, the referee blew five minutes early for half-time.

Dan Harris was knocked out on 50 minutes and replaced by Gian-Paulo Nash and the Southwold penalty count continued unabated.

On 55 minutes, great turn over ball in the scrum saw Jury released, but the ball in dropped and the Southwold fly half gathered and scored under the posts for 38-3.

Jury finally crossed the whitewash on 70 minutes and three minutes later, with yet another huge altercation due to punches thrown, the whistle blew for time.

Haverhill should never have got this far this season based on their lowly position in the Merit leagues and have shown some mighty good teams good rugby to have got to the semi-final.

They came up against a better team who had trained together and this was the biggest difference on the day.

The club is proud of its success this year, having re-formed the second team who got third in their league and the first team having taken hard rugby to many a team this season, punching well above their weight.

There is a touch rugby league taking place over the summer and then Haverhill will compete in Eastern Counties League Division Two in 2012/3, but they have to learn from this year and the previous year to ensure that they grow as a team and as a club.