This was Braintree's last warm up match before the first division league matches start next Sunday.
Only 18 players were available so the coaches were unable to experiment as much as they would have liked in preparation for next week's game at Maldon but, having beaten Rochford narrowly only a few weeks ago, Braintree went into the game with some confidence.The match was played over four quarters in order to integrate all the squad.
Rochford started the stronger but were unable to break through the tight Braintree defence. As the quarter progressed, Braintree came back strongly and made some promising breaks toward the Rochford line and the forwards began to exert some control in open play. The quarter ended 0 v 0.
The second quarter started badly for Braintree and, unfortunately, got worse. Straight from the kick-off, Rochford caught the ball and ran back through some thin defence to score in the corner. Minutes later, their backs exploited some gaps in midfield to score again, in the same corner. Braintree were unable to get a sniff of the ball as Rochford piled on the pressure, scoring a third try in the right hand corner. Then, as the half was coming to an end, some excellent forward play was rewarded with a fourth try in the left hand corner. At half time Braintree trailed 20 v 0.
Whatever was said by the coaches at the break had an immediate effect on the Braintree team. Suddenly the pack was working as a unit and the backs were starting to look dangerous. From the back of a scrum on Rochford's 22 metre line, Cameron Kerr picked up and ran through the blind-side defence for an excellent score. Now it was Rochford who were unable to secure any ball as Braintree started to dictate the play. From a Keelan Joslin kick and chase, Cameron Kerr secured the ball and offloaded to Alex Eveleigh who's perfectly timed pass to Owen Panton allowed him to run under the posts. As the third quarter ended, Braintree certainly had the momentum and had reduced the deficit to 20 v 12.
Sadly, they could not maintain that form into the fourth quarter and Rochford finished off a fine passage of play with a score, again in the right hand corner.
All in all, a tough and fairly even contest apart from the poor second quarter. Braintree showed enough positive play throughout the game to build on and look forward to the start of the league season next week.
The squad included:

1. George Hume
2. Billy Carroll
3. Henry Stanhope
4. Jordan Riley
5. Henry Irving
6. Cameron Laudrum
7. Drew McManus
8. Cameron Kerr
9. Keelan Joslin
10. Josh Wadforth
11. Owen Panton
12. Alex Eveleigh
13. Dan Smith
14. Elliott Frost
15. Fergus Wishart
16. Ben Jones
17. Joseph Meade
18. George Slack