Leighton Buzzard 24, Thurrock 24

THURROCK travelled to Wright's Meadow on Saturday to face a home team determined to make up for an injury-ravaged start to the season. Playing on an exposed pitch with a significant slope is a distinct advantage and the home side certainly knew how to maximise its irregularities.

It is a truism that momentum is key to maintaining success in any walk of life, but in rugby it is the major determinant of outcome. Momentum is the rate of development of a process or course of events and to be at Thurrock Rugby Club on an Academy night, a Sunday morning with the Little Acorns and Juniors or an Essex trial at this wonderful new venue, is to appreciate the magnitude of that momentum!

In simple terms momentum is a vector quantity of magnitude and direction. The proliferation of injuries and team changes has led to a temporary stalling of ambition.

At one stage on Saturday it appeared that the Thurrock first team had made the necessary adjustments and were on the cusp of forward propulsion, before a couple of slight misjudgments handed the initiative back to the "Buzzards".

Using the slope, Leighton Buzzard got off to a good start. A charging run by Ryan Eaton was complemented by some good set-piece play. A clever line-out ploy exposed an overlap which wing Dan Chalmers took full advantage of to open the scoring. Ewan Starling hit the post with a long range conversion.

Thurrock came storming back with some fine inter-play featuring Joss Nunn and Ben Timson and an offside enabled Jake Barrand to kick a penalty to reduce the deficit.

Thurrock now took the initiative and some elementary back play involving some crisp passing from Matt Siddle, Rob Murphy and Henry Bird, started to pay dividends.

As soon as the ball reached Dan Stone or Kye Holloway on the wings, Thurrock made rapid progress. The pass in rugby is the single most important action in producing scoring opportunities and yet, at every level, impatience leads to over-running, forward passes and the over-ruling of scores.

Stone was starting to have a real impact on the game. A fine piece of acceleration almost led to a score, before his break led to Dritan Loka crashing over before being injured in the process. This put the Oakfielders into the lead before Buzzard hit back as hooker Will Batchelor crashed over.

A mazy run from the increasingly influential Stone led to what appeared an outstanding try, before the referee deemed the final pass to be forward.

No.8, Callum Strachan, was having a fine game for the home side, but could not prevent the ball squirting out on the Thurrock side. The ever-alert Ben Timson didn't need a second invitation and this fine ball-player sent Stone over to restore the lead with Barrand just missing the conversion.

Shortly after, the ball was delivered early to Stone and the winger was able to send Rob Murphy over for what looked like a seminal moment of the match. Another penalty took the lead out to 21-10 and Thurrock seemed in complete control!

Then a series of errors brought an inevitable swing of momentum. Leighton Buzzard kicked off after the penalty and it looked as if Starling had failed to make the ten metre line! Instead of controlling the exit strategy, Thurrock decided to play the ball, knocked on and Buzzard regained possession. The rampaging Strachan charged through a gap scattering all before him like a Pamplona bull to give the Bedfordshire outfit a foothold in the match.

Starling gave further incentive by adding the extras.

Although Matt Siddle restored a little order with a penalty and Kye Holloway was thwarted by a foot in touch, Buzzard were now in the ascendancy.

A long kick and chase almost brought a Zammitesque try for the alliterative Felix Fiske, but Stone got back to make a saving tackle. Just as it seemed as if Thurrock had ridden the storm, centres Jack Whitehouse and Eddie Wiggins spotted a "dog-leg" in the defence, straightened the line and waltzed in unopposed under the posts. Starling levelled the scores with the conversion.

In spite of the fact that Thurrock made inroads into the opposition half, they could not score and in the fading light, the game stuttered to an inconclusive finale.

Creating momentum is doing a little more of the things that move you forward and a little less of the things that hold you back. Somedays the forward momentum feels like an inch, some days like a mile!