Chelmsford continued their winning ways with a resounding win against a determined Holt side, scoring 6 tries, with left wing, Jack Acorn scoring 4 of these, and in doing so they recorded a crucial bonus point victory to go back to the top of the table. With Campion surprisingly losing at home to South Woodham Ferrers and Diss just beating Enfield, but not recording any bonus points, this means that Chelmsford and Diss are on equal points, but Chelmsford with two more wins to their name head the table.

After the sad news last week that Braintree had resigned from the league, this meant that all clubs who had played Braintree had their records expunged. As Chelmsford had played Braintree twice already this season, this meant that they had lost the 10 league points already gained and the 119 points scored against Braintree in both games. However, the other clubs still yet to play Braintree will lose a game to all other clubs. As a consequence, Chelmsford now have two games in hand over Campion and one over Diss.

The game itself turned out to be a very open affair, on a firm surface, despite all the rain over the last few weeks. Both sides went on the attack in the early stages and it was Holt who were first on the scoreboard when Chelmsford were guilty of not retreating 10 metres back from a previous penalty decision. Accordingly Dan Ilsley slotted home the kick from the 22 metre line to put the home side 3 – 0 in the lead. Chelmsford responded just 2 minutes later when flanker Josh Cavey who had another tremendous all round game made a break down the middle of the field, he was tackled and the ball was recycled and fed down the back line for wing Jack Acorn to score in the left hand corner for an unconverted try. 5 minutes later Chelmsford doubled their lead when a failed clearance kick from Holt was caught by right wing, Will Ferrier, he passed the ball to full back Jamie Ash, then the ball was fed out to Jack Acorn who went over in the corner again for his 2nd try.

Holt then a chance to reduce the arrears, but Dan Ilsley’s kick was wide, Chelmsford then applied some pressure through scrum half, Ben Bailey, with a fine grubber kick to inside Holt’s 22. Just as Holt then began to exert some pressure themselves, centre Jamie Morrish intercepted a pass in the centre of the field, he was caught, but managed to get the ball away to fly half Simon Hoult, who showed a clean pair of heels to score a well taken try in the right hand corner. With Hoult’s conversion being successful, Chelmsford were now in a 17 – 3 lead and playing some entertaining rugby. Shortly before half time, Chelmsford scored their bonus point try when a clever kick from Hoult was followed up by wing, Will Ferrier. Unfortunately for the home side, they failed to ground the ball over their own line and with Ferrier on hand, he touched down for Chelmsford’s 4th try to bring the half time score to 22 – 3.

Chelmsford now had the wind in their favour and within 5 minutes of the 2nd half, flanker, Jack Venn made a break and passed the ball back inside to Jamie Morrish who fed wing Jack Acorn, who managed to score in the left hand corner for his hat trick of tries. With the conversion being successful, Chelmsford were now in a match winning lead of 29 – 3. Chelmsford then ran the changes to allow all the substitutes a game and then 15 minutes into the half, Chelmsford scored their final 6th try when Simon Hoult threw out a long pass to Jamie Ash, who came into the line and he fed wing Jack Acorn, who brought his personal try tally to 4. With the conversion being unsuccessful, Chelmsford led by 34 – 3.

With the game well and truly won, Chelmsford appeared to take the foot of the pedal somewhat, instead of pressing home the advantage. Credit to Holt, they never stopped trying and they themselves had a period of pressure when they began to run the ball down the middle of the park, as they knew they were unable to make any headway down the flanks. With both sides becoming slightly frustrated at some of the referring decisions not going their way, tempers became slightly frayed and a few off the ball incidents resulted in Chelmsford’s Josh Cavey receiving a yellow card. With Holt applying pressure, centre Harry Simpson came out of the blocks far too quickly and he was caught offside, meaning Chelmsford were now down to 13 men. Unfortunately Chelmsford were unable to hold out and running out of numbers wide, the home side managed to score a well taken try through Dan Ilsley to bring the final score to 34 – 8 for a well deserved victory.

Director of Rugby, Eddie Gooby was full of praise for his squad, he said after the game “For the first sixty minutes this was probably our most complete performance of the season. Whilst the last 20 minutes were tough through our own indiscipline and Holt upping their game, it showed to me that we have the desire to defend after 60 minutes of all out attack. Winning 34-8 at Holt is no mean achievement as other sides have struggled there this season. Once again the scrum set the standard and in this area we are getting stronger by the week. This gave our backs a great platform to express their skills and pace and we scored six fantastic team tries. The next few weeks are going to get exciting, made even harder with Braintree withdrawing from the league and the adjustment of the points. We will focus again this weekend coming and prepare hard for Enfield, who pushed Diss all the way. We know this is going to be a tough physical game against them. I know the boys enjoy playing Enfield so the game itself will motivate us.”