PEGASUS PALMERIANS 21 BRAINTREE 48

Friendly

Braintree Rugby Club’s long road to recovery began with a 48-21 friendly victory at Pegasus Palmerians.

The Black and Ambers made the decision to pull their struggling first team out of London League division two north east recently after they suffered a run of 16 straight defeats and were unable to send a side to two consecutive away fixtures.

They are hoping to field a side in Essex League division one next season and this friendly was arranged partly for them to be able to measure themselves against opposition from that level.

Braintree fielded a mixture of first and second team players and it took a while for them to gel.

Two tries from fly-half Joss Adams plus scores from wing James Abbott and outside centre George Crane enabled the visitors to go in 20-7 ahead at half-time.

Adams completed his hat-trick early in the second half before replacement flanker Liam Meredith rounded off a good forwards move to score a try converted by Darren Page. Page was also on hand to convert when prop Lloyd Hardin scored Braintree’s seventh try.

The home side then took advantage of some sloppy play inside their own 22 by Braintree to score two converted tries. But a fine try from skipper Tom Carslake, which Page converted, wrapped up Braintree’s win.

Coach Brian Joslin said: “It was nice to get a win after such a torrid season and we scored some great individual tries.

“We’re grateful to Pegasus Palmerians for agreeing to give us a game at such short notice. The established first-team players performed exceptionally well and it was a great stage on which to introduce younger players like Tom and Sam Drew, Jake McEwan and Will Turner.

“Lloyd Hardin gave a man-of-the-match performance at prop and worked hard all game, but it was great to see smiles on the players’ faces for the first time in a long while.

“In fairness to our opponents it was a much closer game than the score suggests and the coaching team were all in agreement that Essex One is the right level for the current group of players available to us at moment.”

Braintree: T Drew, J Abbott, Crane, S Drew, P Evans, Adams, Dawson, Hardin, Douglas, Jones, McEwan, Carslake, Lee, L Evans, N Spearman. Reps: Page, T Ashford, Meredith, Turner.