Walden come away with 3 points at Diss

Walden show heart and determination to come away with a Bonus Point draw with a last minute try.

Walden travelled to Diss who were sitting a couple of places above them in the league.
Even though the weather finally cleared up after morning rain the pitch was still wet which made handling difficult for both teams especially in the first half.
It was Walden who started strongly working the ball into the Diss 22 and some slick passing from the base of a ruck saw inside centre Mark Kimberley find a gap in the defence to go over in the corner 0- 5 after only 4 minutes of play.
Diss hit back 3 minutes later with one of many strong runs by their influential No8 who broke a tackle and off loaded to put a player through to go ahead 7 – 5.
Walden were again defending 30 metres out when Kimberley intercepted a pass running 70 metres to go under the posts and Walden were back in front. 7- 12. 15 mins.
Then the forwards got into the act when Walden kicked a penalty to the corner and they set up a driving maul to push Diss over the line with 2nd Row Matt Holden scoring. 7 – 17 22mins.
Over the next few minutes Walden suffered three injuries as fly half Tom Hughes (rib) and Matt Holden (shoulder) both having to be replaced and then when left winger Paul Marshall intercepted a pass 10 metres from his own try line he started to sprint the 90 metres to score but got to half way and his hamstring tightened, to his credit sub Ollie Webber was tracking his run and was on hand to receive a pass running the rest of the distance, increasing Walden's lead with the Bonus point try. 7 – 22.
Diss scored two late penalties to leave the half time score at 13 -22.
10 minutes into the second half Diss scored their third try to narrow the gap to only 2 points. 20- 22.
But despite all the disruption to Walden's starting line up they were still trying to play attacking Rugby and from a Penalty on their own 22 instead of kicking for the line out they tapped, catching the home team off guard and sped the Ball down the line to replacement winger Rob Booth who made 50 metres, a couple of phases later the ball was on the opposite wing for Adam Miles to go over in the corner to take Walden back ahead. 20- 27, with still 15 minutes to play.
Walden had to bring back on two of their injured players when others had to go off and Diss began to make in roads into Walden’s defence and levelled the score with a converted try as the Full Back ran a good line to go under the posts and then with only 4 minutes remaining they took the lead with what looked like the decisive score using a driving maul to go 34- 27 ahead.
With only a couple of minutes left on the clock Walden did not let their heads drop and regained possession and a couple of fine runs by Kimberley and Miles saw them work the ball up field. The forwards got into the act as they drove towards the Diss try line. Remarkably Paul Marshall now playing at scrum half with only one good leg and unable to sprint took the Ball off the base of Ruck 8 metres out handed off one player spun out of another tackle to dive over near the posts and the scores were level.
With one minute to go both teams tried for the win but the ball was knocked on and the whistle was blown.
A good game to watch and Walden showed great spirit and heart to come away with 3 points, outscoring Diss 6 tries to 4. Man of the match was awarded to flanker Ned Potter making his league debut but perhaps the busiest person on the field was physio Nicole who somehow managed to patch enough players up to keep 15 on the field which proved so crucial at the end.

We are always on the look out for new players to play either in the first team in London N1 or the Saxons (2nd team) in Eastern Counties 1West, if you are interested in joining our friendly club please contact either info@swrfc.co.uk or graham.marshall2@ntlworld.com