Late tries make scoreline harsh on Tabard

London One North

Tabard 5 Colchester 27

CAM O’Connor, Tabard’s flanker and captain, had the game of his life on Saturday with a tremendous performance in both attack and defence but his stupendous efforts, although well supported by the rest of the team, proved to no avail as Tabard suffered a defeat at the hands of Colchester on Saturday.

O’Connor’s inspirational performance started from the kick off and, despite Colchester being in the top quartile of the table, it was Tabard who started hard and took the game to their opponents. The opening quarter was indicative of the intensity of the game to come as both sides tackled hard and kept their opponents at bay but in the end the Tabard pressure showed and from a period near the Colchester line the ball was fed to tight head prop Wilf Lake who showed his power by driving over the line and taking the defenders with him as he touched down.

After this bright start for Tabard it was Colchester’s turn to show they could play good attacking rugby. However, the Tabard defence was equal to the task but Colchester finally got their reward when they managed to turn over a Tabard line out in the hosts’ twenty-two and their hooker, Adamson, was over under the posts giving centre Wiggins an easy conversion.

Wiggins converted two further penalties before half time to put Colchester 13 points to five up, despite the closeness of the encounter.

The second half was epitomised by Colchester attacking hard and Tabard defending like demons with tackle after tackle going in. Tabard also had their fair share of attacking moves with full-back Kieran Murphy and wings Matt Roberts and Stephen Jenkins, all having good penetrative runs, as well as O’Connor and stand-off Tryfan Edwards making ground. However, all Tabard’s work came to nothing and they also found their ball retention not as good as it should have been thus allowing Colchester plenty of opportunities to attack.

The last 10 minutes was Tabard’s undoing. A second yellow card for Tabard’s No.8, meant he was out of the game and this gave Colchester the edge. Wing Brambley capitalised on a rare Tabard error to go over between the uprights for a try which Wiggins converted. Then, with not long to go, Tabard took a risky drop out to try and keep the game going but the ball was fielded by Brambley again, who went in under the posts. Wiggins converted and the game was over with Tabard again defeated. Next week Tabard travel to Ruislip, kick off 2.30 pm.

Tabard: Murphy, Roberts (Gough 74), Mead, Mitchell (Davis 70), Jenkins, Edwards, Van der Vlugt, B Lake, Hart, W Lake, Calnan (O’Neill 73), Astley, O’Connor, Stingu, Stoba.

Other result: Tabard 2nd XV 62 Bishop’s Stortford 10.