Team: Jacob, Alfie, Jamie, Ed, Coby, Cayden, Robert, Alex, Isaac, Henry, Jordan, Frank, Jack, Cole, Finlay, Harris & Tate.

Result: Braintree Win 16 - 6

The match was played in in glorious sunshine against a well drilled Thurrock team. Both sides lined up in teams of 9 and the match was divided into 15 minutes quarters to ensure all of the players were involved for half of the match. The Thurrock team were warming up as we arrived and they had a number of players that looked head and shoulders bigger than all of our team.

Once the match was underway it was clear that the Braintree team were fired up and the first few crunching tackles dispatched the Thurrock attack. The team were focused on line speed all game and quickly closed down the Thurrock team at the earliest opportunity.

Following on from the learning points in last weeks game and the points we worked on in training - it was great to see how well the boys worked as a team and their performance was excellent.

Throughout the game, the team out rucked the Thurrock side and once they recovered the ball the distribution was very good. We witnessed every member of the team tackling hard, taking contact and presenting the ball, passing quickly and most importantly communicating with their teammates throughout the game.

The team scored some fantastic trys and showed some great promise for when we move to 12 a side after Christmas.

Players of the Match: Jack & Jordan - who both played their hearts out all day by tackling like demons and scoring some great trys.