Great Performance against the odds

After last weeks first league win of the season preparations for the trip to Mersea Island couldn’t have been worse with injury and unavailability decimating our back line

However you wouldn’t have noticed as the reshuffled team along with the introduction of new signings in Lock, Dave Kitenge and Scrum half, Josh Cook put in a superb effort

The young Dagenham pack could have been excused for a nervous start considering the size differences between the two packs but this wasn’t to be so, as for the entire 80 minutes as they fronted up magnificently and matched the Mersea scrum when the referee made them scrummage legally, which wasn’t as often as it should have been. My final comment on the refereeing

Both sides produced some decent rugby with Mersea scrum half causing most damage in the open spaces with his powerful running yet they couldn’t penetrate the Ds line and took the lead from a penalty for 3-0

Dagenham really hit back hard through some excellent work from both forwards and backs with Jermaine Darkwa scoring wide right first for 3-5 then a quite outrageous score from 9 Cook, breaking blind from a scrum Cook dummied the Mersea right wing with his head before going in left of the posts. With Jordan Calverley hitting the extras Ds lead 3-12

Mersea now has the lions share of the play to score through their 9 for 10-12

Dagenham now went back at the home side and again scored a superbly worked try through Jermaine Darkwa for 10-17

Mersea hit back with another penalty for a half time score of 13-17 to the visitors

The 47 minute first half would be short compared to the 56 minute second half and the visitors could be excused for thinking the official was waiting for the tide to ebb!

The first period of the half saw both sides attack without much success punctuated by some sloppy handling and odd decisions with both teams scoring this time through Jordan Darkwa for Dagenham after some good work from wing Scott Ballard. 13-22 Mersea returned favour to score for 20-22

Dagenham now took control of the game in what should have been the final twenty minutes with a perfectly crafted driving maul from Damien Collins for 20-27 before the try of the game

Mersea won their own ball at scrum time and then broke blind looking to play the ball wide to the wing however replacement number 8 Jake Yellop had other ideas as he intercepted the pass before sprinting away from the cover defence to score near the posts, with Calverley adding the extras for a score of 20-34

By our watches the game had 6-7 minutes to go however the official played on for a further 16!

Try as they might everything seemed to go against the visitors in the remaining time and a penalty from Mersea moved the score on to 23-34 before another score (54 minutes into the half) further cut the deficit to 30-34

Finally the tide must have cleared the roadway as the referee saw fit to end the game after a great steal from hooker Jack Warner gave Dagenham a penalty that was played into touch for a fine win on the road

The small improvements over the past weeks are starting to pay off and if we could actually get a full squad out who knows what we could achieve

We know the season is still going to be a tough one and with the visit of league leaders Mavericks next week we could come down to earth with a bump, but don’t write us off just yet!

MOTM: Jake Yellop - a try of outstanding magnificence !

DOTM: George Rawlinson for the worst clearance kick attempt I've ever seen

Team: Wonderling, J Warner, Davenport (Garwood), Kitenge, D Wren (Rawlinson), G Wren (Yellop), Cook, Calverley, Ballard, Darkwa, Darkwa, C Warner, W Evans