Eastern Counties Division One Cantabs 9 Wisbech 16 IN a closely fought match, Wisbech were left to grind out an away win at Cantabs of Cambridge and maintain second place in the league behind Wymondham. Winger Tim Mason opened the scoring with a try and M

Eastern Counties Division One

Cantabs 9 Wisbech 16

IN a closely fought match, Wisbech were left to grind out an away win at Cantabs of Cambridge and maintain second place in the league behind Wymondham.

Winger Tim Mason opened the scoring with a try and Mark Laws pushed the conversion attempt wide to leave the score at 5-0 six minutes into the game.

Cantabs stayed in touch with a penalty on 11 minutes to reduce the arrears to two points.

Man of the match, Tom Martell, was the pick of the Wisbech forwards in a period of nip and tuck that culminated with Laws successfully kicking a penalty with 20 minutes on the clock to make the score 8-3.

Wisbech's defence held tight and a sustained attack by Cantabs saw a penalty as their only reward and in doing so pegged the score back to 8-6.

James Comben finally put some daylight between the sides by scoring an unconverted try with four minutes of the half remaining.

Cantabs closed the gap even further with another penalty to leave the score at 13-9 with 20 minutes to play. Mark Laws was successful with the boot to take the score to 13-9 and 10 minutes later added another to open a seven point gap. Cantabs by now had little left and Wisbech closed out the game to record an away victory.

Norfolk Merit Table

Wisbech II 65

Norwich Crusaders III 0

WISBECH maintained their good league form with an impressive win.

David Salmon opened the scoring in the first minute and Matt Gill kicked the conversion to make it 7-0. This was followed by a James Napier try in the seventh minute which was also converted by Gill.

Crusaders made Wisbech work hard for their scores. It took a magnificent break by Raimus to create a score under the posts for Carl Ringwood, leaving Gill to add the conversion.

A 15-minute purple patch led to tries from Rob Charlton, Raimus and a brace from Ben Rogers with one Gill conversion taking the score to 43-0 at half time.

The second half started a little more slowly than the first, but Wisbech were patient in their play.

Eventually, Rob Charlton got the scoring going with his second try after some sterling work by man of the match Phil Reid. This was followed by Raimus' second.

Sam Anderson by now had taken over kicking duties and slotted the conversion.

The introduction of prop Johan Smallman wrapped the game up as he bagged two unconverted tries to complete the rout.