Bracknell 1st vs North Walsham 1st

Bracknell 16 (13) North Walsham 16 (10)

The dull and still weather was a fitting prelude to this match which ended Bracknell’s three match winning streak, before kick off it was expected to extend this before the last two fixtures this side of Christmas, including the all important match against Old Albanians.
North Walsham probably thought Christmas had come early as Bracknell gifted the opposition the customary lead before starting to join in the game. Although Bracknell had the better of the earlier exchanges it was Walsham who scored first with a penalty after seven minutes. They added to their lead scoring a try after a series of fumbles and dropped catches, the score under the post making for an easy conversion to put the away side ten nil a head.

Realising this was not to be the easy game Bracknell were obviously expecting they upped their own game and made the breakthrough on the half hour, scoring a penalty where it became obvious that if Walsham are put under pressure they concede penalties as demonstrated by the two yellow cards they received. This signalled one of the better spells of the game for Bracknell, another penalty was kicked to touch, a maul following a good line out take, a run under the posts by Surman was repelled but after another run this time by Mirza and another penalty to touch the inevitable score finally came when Walsham pulled down a maul. The penalty try easily converted to make the score ten all.
At this point the seasoned Bracknell supporter would have expected Bracknell to now go on and complete the formalities of victory, despite looking good more tries, after a number of phases of rucks, drives the final score of the half was another penalty. Half time 13-10.
The second half was more of the same with Bracknell looking to score, playing as they had left off the first half, but it wasn’t to be. Walsham only had a couple of forays into the Bracknell half missing, a couple of penalties, but finally scored a penalty to make it thirteen each. Again this galvanised Bracknell and as the rain and darkness crept in Manupenu scored an excellent long range penalty to put Bracknell back in the lead.

With minutes remaining it looked like Bracknell would hold on for victory but Walsham were determined to get something from the game.After some panicky kicking from the Bracknell defence a return kick down the line after Bracknell Fly Half Manupenu failed to find touch again,was deemed to have been deliberately slapped into touch by the Bracknell Wing Jordan and a penalty was awarded. The penalty just crept over the cross bar by the near post after which the ref blew for time.

Judging by the celebrations by The Walsham players it was an unexpected draw on their part. From the start it was North Walsham that wanted the win more than their Bracknell counterparts which ultimately came through in the end.........the passion to want to win!