Thurrock 33, Rochford 12

WHAT a difference a week makes? Tees' U15 team had come up short against Westcliff and Old Brentwoods on previous Sunday's, by small margins.

Lessons were learnt, Coach Driscoll and these Thurrock boys were in no mood for defeat this time!

Sunday May 16th versus Rochford, within five minutes, Nathan Ray was picking the ball up from the back of a ruck and charging over for an early try and a great start for Thurrock. Danny McAllister duly converted to make it 7-0 to Tees.

From the restart, Rochford applied the pressure, won a throw in and moved the ball through the hands to score a fine try in the opposite corner. 7-5.

Thurrock and Rochford 'slugged it out' in the following exchanges with the ever impressive back row forward, Ray making it over the line for his second try which Ethan Cook duly converted 14-5

Thurrock piled on the pressure with yet another well worked try passing the ball through the hands for centre, Overy to go over. Cook duly converted 21-5.

Arguably, try of the match for Thurrock came just before half time when full back Milo Wilsher joined the line, late, to take a pass at speed and take the ball a lung busting 50 yards to score in the corner, 26 -5. This was now 'champagne rugby' the likes of which we have not seen at Oakfield for a while.

The heavens opened in the second half. Rain and greasy conditions meant that there were ball handling errors on both sides which slowed down the passage of play. However, winger Mitchell Lilley, kept up his impressive try scoring record with a try touched down behind the posts.

Fair play to Rochford, being down one or two players through injury, continued to compete and got their just rewards with a consolation try and conversion, 33- 12 being the final score.

Most pleasing of all, this was a fine team performance from Tees u15s who all played well on the day and our thanks as a club to Westcliff, Old Brentwoods and Rochford for helping us with this series of great matches for the boys over the past few Sundays at Oakfield.