HALSTEAD TEMPLARS 54 WOODBRIDGE II 7

Greene King Eastern Counties League division three south

Halstead Templars returned to Greene King Eastern Counties League division three south action by running riot against a Woodbridge seconds side that had been buoyed by some good recent results but was short of a few players.

In fact Templars had to offer the services of three newly-acquired players in Matt Deal, Ryan Ball and Danny Ball to even out the numbers, however, the Suffolk side were no match for a Halstead side that started on the front foot.

First on the scoresheet and scoring against his old team-mates was skipper and hooker Adi Illingworth, who dived over following a quality pass from centre Matt Beckinsale.

And four further tries followed in a 30-minute spell.

Two of them were of particularly high quality via textbook linking between forwards and backs with the ball being off-loaded to the flanks for scores near the posts. Try scorers in the first half for Halstead included Ash Meade, who collected three on the day, and Ed Pawsey, who picked up four tries during the 80 minutes as nobody in the opposition managed to match his guile, speed and support running.

The second half continued as the first ended, with the returning Joe Baldock making a big contribution in the loose at blindside flanker and being a constant threat to the opposition.

The returning Josh Donaldson, who was playing at ten, had a steady game and made some telling breaks, while Phil Foster made some barn-storming runs as did prop Jordan Samuel and his fellow prop Craig Trevain took the restarts well.

Halstead dominated at the scrum and their line-out functioned well, with nothing getting past man-of-the-match Will Allen in defence.

Against the run of play, though, a neat blindside move saw the Woodbridge scrum-half and number eight combine to score in the corner.

It was a brief respite for the vicitors, though, as further scores came from lock Josh Beckinsale and scrum-half Jack Beckinsale, whose sniping was a constant menace, and to complete a superb trio of scorers from same family, dad Matt Beckinsale added the final try.

The next fixture for the Templars is a home game on March 7 against Harwich and Dovercourt seconds, whom Halstead are challenging for third spot in the table.