Mersea Island visited Forest Road with obvious high expectations after some good recent results and bringing a big pack of forwards.
Unfortunately they met a fired up Ilford side in no mood to stall their charge to the top. The visitors found themselves 12-0 down inside fifteen minutes.
First their forwards were shunted backwards at a rate of knots, to allow space for Full Back Tom Clancy to go over and then Ilfords forwards went for a catch and drive,
forcing over Hooker Ollie Bird. Mersea ,though showed great resolve with two tries of their own sending their big forwards crashing through Ilfords defences.
So at 12-10 Ilford needed to regroup and slowly built enough pressure , forcing Mersea to commit offences giving Ilford a chance to kick for touch. A line out catch and drive gets stopped but the resulting scrum shatters Merseas defences and Skipper Jason Taylor busts over the line.
The Wanderers were warming to their task in bitterly cold conditions and on a snow covered pitch. Another penalty, this time just outside Ilfords 22, Clancy goes on a mazy, being stopped inside Merseas 22 only for Fly Half Alfie Waddens to batter his way over.But again Mersea showed their character by pouncing on Ilford mistakes and going the length themselves to score.
That was the end of Merseas scoring as Ilford started to turn the screw, getting to Merseas 5metre line moving the ball right for Centre Ryan Mcarthy to crash over. At 31-17
Ilford went to their lineout again for the next score for Bird again. Mersea were now struggling to exit their 5 metre line, giving away a penalty, taken quickly by Flanker Sam Edie
to cross the line for the final time.

Taylor commented after" In those conditions, that was a great game and Mersea should be congratulated for their part. We move on, Stanford next week, a real 'must win" still
trying to bring everything together in one game. Points are going begging, but its hard to criticise a comprehensive victory like that"