Broadland Tigers 0, Dereham II 51BROADLAND Tigers, affected by late call-offs travelled without replacements to Dereham for a friendly fixture. The two captains agreed to go ahead with the game despite part of the field being covered by snow.

Broadland Tigers 0, Dereham II 51

BROADLAND Tigers, affected by late call-offs travelled without replacements to Dereham for a friendly fixture. The two captains agreed to go ahead with the game despite part of the field being covered by snow.

From the kick-off it was clear that Dereham had taken advantage of their first team not having a fixture to bolster their team with more than a sprinkling of first team players, making the game a catch-weight contest from the start.

With this advantage the Dereham side were soon into their stride exposing some poor first-up tackling from the Broadland team and getting on the score sheet within the first few minutes.

Under pressure in both the line and scrum, Broadland struggled to generate ball of any quality for the backs. Clarke, however, took the decision to opt for quick penalties wherever possible, feeding Finn in the unfamiliar position of fly half. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to unlock the Dereham defence.

Dereham continued to rack up the points in the first half, with their fly half popping up all over the pitch to dance through despairing tackles to score himself, or offload to his teammates.

As half-time approached, Broadland began to believe in their own abilities with Fogg again showing the way with a number of barging runs, quickly-taken penalties and breaking through tackles to set up a good platform for scrum half Clarke to feed Finn.

This continued after the break with Dereham only able to cross the Broadland line on a couple of occasions.

The Broadland team, particularly in the second half, played with real heart, tackled their socks off and ran the ball right to the final whistle. They should be proud of their performance despite the scoreline, in fact no single player could be selected for MoM, so it went to the whole team, who from one to 15 played with pride in what was in the end a pointless and pyrrhic victory for the home team.

The Tigers' next game is Merit Division Two game at home against Fakenham II, meet at Cobholm playing fields 1pm.

Team: Beagrie, B Collings, Cantillion, Drew, Cousins, Finn, Clarke, K Collings, Abel, Hewitt, Fogg, Miller, Smart, Jarvis, Moore.