A severely depleted St Roosters travelled to Norwich for their first game in 3 weeks and suffered a 38 – 18 loss at the hands of the Saxons. When the league’s original fixture list was published the Roosters were allocated a free weekend which resulted in a number of players making alternative arrangements. This left Roosters Coach, Ian Hill, with 16 players unavailable for the game. An arrangement was made with Norwich for the Saxons to loan the Roosters four players and the Hill came out of retirement to play his first game for 5 years.
The game started for the Roosters as Hill looked like he had never been away as he dictated play from stand off. The ball was moved to the right hand side of the field after impressive drives from David Sykes and Josh Dear resulted in Chris Sykes crossing close to the line from dummy half to open the scoring for the Roosters. Vitally the kick was missed. Despite some fine individual efforts in defence the Roosters struggled due to the unfamiliar faces in the side and they were exposed on the right on side of the field as the Saxons hit back to level the scores after 10 minutes for an unconverted try. They increased their lead on the same side of the pitch with a converted try.
To their credit Roosters heads did not go down and they hit back on 20 minutes with a try from one of their loaned Norwich players. This brought them back to two points behind the Saxons. They then regained the lead with the try of the game as they moved the ball to the left hand side of the field where a great off load in the tackle allowed another loaned player to score in the corner with a great dive. Unfortunately Drake was unsuccessful with both conversion attempts as the Roosters moved into a 12 – 10 lead.
With the game being played at such a fast pace players on both sides began to tire and on 30 minutes the Saxons regained the lead with a converted try to lead 16 – 12 at half time.
The second half opened badly for the Roosters as Norwich increased the lead with a converted try to make the score 22 – 12. The Roosters hit back though as drives by Castle, Paxton & Sykes moved them up the field. This allowed Michael Drake to chip over the defence which allowed another loaned player to touch down near the posts. Charles Paxton took over the goal kicking duties and narrowed the lead to 22 – 18.
Tiring legs and no substitutes made the rest of the second half difficult for the Roosters but they battled on gamely and nearly crossed the line on three occasions. Gaps started to appear in their defence as the Saxons pressed the Roosters line. To clean breaks were effectively dealt with by full back Tom Wakeley who saved two certain tries with excellent one on one tackles.
With ten minutes to go Norwich secured the win with three tries, two of which were converted, to make the final score 38 – 18. Roosters Coach Ian Hill commented “Despite the loss the players battled very hard under difficult circumstances. Some played out of position but the effort and attitude was excellent”
The Roosters return to action next weekend Saturday 4th July with a home game against Colchester Romans at St Ives RFC, Somersham Road. Kick Off is 2.30pm