DISAPPOINTED Braintree have to go back to the drawing board after they were blown away by Chelmsford in a one-sided north Essex derby at Robbs Wood on Saturday.
The black and ambers had been hopeful of sneaking a result against their in-form rivals after narrowly missing out on the points following the previous weekend’s agonizingly close defeat away to Enfield.
But they didn’t look at the races from the off and Chelmsford’s former Southend fly-half Simon ‘Sid’ Hoult was given carte blanche to pull the strings for the visitors to deadly effect.
Chelmsford set the tone for a depressing afternoon for Tree when they ran the home side’s kick-off straight back at them using both forwards and backs, forcing the concession of a second minute penalty which Hoult bagged for a 3-0 lead.
Three minutes later the visiting stand-off was on target again to double his side’s lead when Tree were penalised for not rolling away at the tackle to concede another penalty
When Tree did finally mount an attack in the eighth minute a careless pass was intercepted by Chelmsford’s Craig Wooldridge, who sprinted away for a try that was converted by Hoult to put the visitors 13-0 ahead.
To make matters worse the hosts lost outside centre Joss Adams to an accidental clash of heads which forced him to leave the field of play with blood pouring from a deep cut.
But they gave their fans a glint of hope on 19 minutes when scrum-half Darren Page created a chance at the back of a scrum and fed the ball to inside centre James Moore who powered home for a try.
The conversion was well notched by fly-half Craig Willis to reduce the deficit to 13-7, but it proved only momentary respite for Tree.
Chelmsford were jolted back into action and quickly posted three unconverted tries courtesy of Wooldridge and props Dean Lester and Stephen Prest to earn them a 28-7 half-time advantage.
Unfortunately Tree’s hopes of being able to regroup and start again never came to fruition as they found themselves on the wrong end of a try-scoring procession from the impressive visitors.
A try from flanker Josh Cavey was converted by Hoult, who then added himself to the list of Chelmsford try scorers before converting his own score to stretch their lead to 42-7.
Winger Jamie Ash got in on the act on the hour mark when he rounded off a superb backs move after Tree lost their own line-out ball, Holut’s conversion making it 49-7.
The loss of John Smillie from the Braintrees front row after moving from No8 due to Veteran Matt moores earlier injury forced the introduction of uncontested scrums and saw the home side playing with 14 men, which hardly helped their losing cause.
Guaranteed ball from their own scrum gave Tree the chance to mount a few attacks of their own and teenage replacement back Dan Olley finished off a slick passing move to score a fine try which was converted by Willis to reduce the deficit to 49-14.
But two further tries by Jamie Morrish and Hoult, both converted by Chelmsford’s man of the match stand-off, just added an inevitable icing to the visitors’ cake.
BRUFC Joint Coach Brian Joslin said: “Chelmsford were worthy winners. They’re a very well structured and conditioned side and they had too much for us. They’ve set the benchmark for the season even at this early stage of the campaign.
“Our players all recognise they have a lot of work to do if they’re to make an impact in this league and we want to make sure that we give them a much tougher game in the return fixture.
“There were few positives for us to take from the game but James Moore and James Abbott played well in the centres together and young Dan Olley scored a great try after coming on for his home debut.”
Winless Tree face another tough fixture after the break weekend when they make the trip down to south Essex to face Basildon.
BRUFC: Abbott, Evans, Adams (Olley), J Moore, Crane, Willis, Page, Jones, Halford, M Moore (Spearman), Fitzearle (Stephens), Apps, Carslake, Benfield, Smillie.