Match Report

Stowmarket made one of their longer journeys to play a side, that in the last few years has been a bit of a bogey side for them. However a fast opening by the visitors helped to ease nerves and once again proved that a fast moving expansive game is extremely difficult to defend, and although Stowmarket failed to score in the opening phases, the confidence was clear to be seen and two early tries by wingers Scott Woolnough and Nick Faliveno gave Stowmarket a bit of comfort, and when with West Norfolk pressing the ball went to ground centre Stuart Hill rolled back the years to go three quarters of the pitch to score under the posts with full back Dan Garrard kicking the conversion to give Stowmarket a well-deserved 17 – 0 half time lead.

The second half continued with West Norfolk trying to move it through their big forwards, but repeatably found themselves running down blind alleys, and from another spill, captain Joe Fifield kicked cleverly down the line for anyone of 3 Stowmarket players but actually picked by Dan Garrard to give them all important fourth try. Understandably Stowmarket lifted their foot and allowed West Norfolk to score a deserved try. Stowmarket then scored perhaps the best try of the game as Dan Garrard broke before kicking across field for replacement winger Brad Durrant to catch and cut inside without breaking stride to score under the posts. At this point the West Norfolk number 10 self destructed and talked himself into a yellow and then a red card. Whilst this clearly let down his teammates it actually served to rally the home side and they played some of their best rugby of the game, however there were gaps and Stowmarket extended their lead with further tries from Scott Woolnough, Joe Fifield, and Colin Clarke, before letting West Norfolk score the closing 2 tries of the game.

Stowmarket will be very satisfied with performance ahead of next Saturdays Suffolk Cup final at Chilton Fields against Mersea Island, and also that with this victory they guaranteed themselves at least a promotion playoff spot.