March Bears win the battle of the heavyweights against Thorney
March Bears 38, Thorney 7
The only two undefeated teams in Eastern Counties Division 1 West met in this heavyweight local derby on Saturday, and the game lived up to its billing with a fantastic game played by two teams giving no quarter to each other
The first quarter of the game saw the teams going back and forth with both defences not giving an inch.
Then in the 23rd minute a piece of Will Paul magic saw him giving a great dummy then cutting through the opposition’s back line to go over and touch down near the posts. Sam Howatt, who has become a very reliable kicker, put the ball over the posts for the extra two points
March now had the bit between their teeth and Bryn Pughsley was on the end of an excellent recycle move with the Thorney defence going narrow and went over for March’s second in the 28th minute which again was converted by Howat
Suddenly there was a difference between the teams both in terms of urgency and score and with this in hand March scored their third in the 35th minute with a determined Will Paul going over the line for his second. Again Howat popped over the conversion to give March a 21-0 half-time advantage
From the second-half restart kick-off, Paul took the ball for March and carved through the Thorney defence and with Pughsley on his shoulder slipped the ball to Bryn who went over in the right-hand corner at pace and then two minutes later a fantastic open play move by March saw the ball finishing in the hands of Paul who was not going to be stopped going over the line for his hat-trick.
From being 21-0 at half time within three minutes of the restart March were now 31- 0. However, Thorney were still fighting and though they could not get over the line they stopped March repeatedly.
March then let their discipline go and Paul and Lee Kupyn received 10 minutes each in the sin bin with yellow cards in the 57th minute
March still defended valiantly but in the 61st minute Thorney with their heavier pack went for a pushover try followed by a successful dropkick conversion from out wide
With Kupyn and Paul still in the bin March then incredibly scored a try with a two-man deficit and even more astonishingly, March created an overlap fo Pughsley to score his hat-trick with a well-taken try on the right.
Aaron Connor then came on for his debut in the 73rd minute and before the minute was up he was injured in a misjudged tackle and back off again, hence completing probably the shortest debut for the club ever
This was an excellent game for the spectators and Thorney should be congratulated for not giving in to an incredible display from March who rotated their whole bench onto the field in the second half and never looked any weaker doing so
Finally, there had to be two Players of the Match with the hat-trick heroes Will Paul and Bryn Pughsley rightly sharing the honour.