It was a cold and cloudy morning when we arrived at Westcliffe but we hoped for a good day. Due to the mix up in fixtures Braintree were only able to field one team on this occasion. The boys had played all the teams in their pool on previous occasions and knew that they needed to step up to the plate to get at least top of their pool.

Braintree’s first match was against Ongar. This saw the boys start off a little slow with some good opportunities being missed with the lack of good passing and with the dropping off the ball on occasions causing turnovers only to allow Ongar to score and gain a two try lead at half time, but after a half time pep talk from the coaches the boys seemed to wake up and get into their stride a little more. The boys came back with excellent tagging causing two 7-tag turnovers with it ending in an 8-7 win to Braintree.

Now the boys had a win under their belts they played their next match like a different team with fantastic off loads and tenacious tagging they soon picked up their next win against Chelmsford with a 6-4 win to Braintree

Our boys knew who were the key players and try scorers in some of the other teams left to play as they had been watching them play. This meant two of our fastest players were told to mark them and close them down so once they were passed to they were tagged and put out of the game for at least two passes so that they were not given the opportunity to score, which completely took them out of the game. Our tagging and with some fantastic sidestepping meant that we had turnover balls on several occasion leading Braintree to score some incredible tries.

It was more of the same for the next 2 matches against Westcliffe & Upminster 1 with great passing and superb defense saw the boys win at the top of their pool with ease.

Now the boys were in the cup final Braintree v Upminster 2 and it was all to play for.

Braintree won the toss and started, from the initial pass we gained 10 yards and were tagged, it saw a poor pass which was knocked on causing a turn over this put Upminster in a position to try and score and even with some good tagging from Braintree it was not enough and Upminster scored the first try, this put Braintree on the back foot. Braintree counter attacked but the player was knocked over and luckily the ball rolled back towards our own line to enable us to pick it up and run which we did and luckily we scored. This went on through the first half with Upminster taking the lead at half time 4-2

Braintree came back at half time knowing they had to make up two tries, the boys went out with an eager to win, but with Upminster taking the first pass and with a little fending off it made it hard for the boys to get the tags and Upminster broke trough and scored.
Braintree came back and as we saw in the last games with excellent passing and support they broke through and scored two tries this made it 5 – 4

With a minute and half left of the game it was all or nothing, Upminster scored again Braintree tried in vain to score another two tries but were only able to score one ending the game with Upminster winning 6 - 5

We all want to win but coming 2nd out of 9 teams is no mean feat

The boys played their hearts out today and should be extremely proud of what they achieved today. They gave it their all in every game in which they played and they played fair and by the rules.
As coaches and parents of the boys we cannot ask off anything more from them.

Well-done boys keep up the great work.