Colin Galbraith reports on the game between March Bears and Mistley on Saturday.
On a windy and wet Saturday this was never likely to be a high scoring affair with handling difficult and kicks sometimes not going where they were intended.
However, what did occur was a terrific match of technical defensive brilliance and one which until the last five minutes the Bears had not allowed their line to be breached.
Mistley were a team on a winning streak and were in the top three of the league before this game.
In a game almost solely played in the middle half of the pitch, March were testing the defence of Mistley and in the eleventh minute Danny Grieve made a terrific angled break down the middle of the pitch and found George Paul on his shoulder who took the ball all the way and under the posts.
George converted his own try taking the score to 7 v 0 and that is how it stayed until half time with neither side willing to give in the remainder of the opening period.
The second half started with neither side having any advantage from the wind as it swept through the pitch from side to side but a fantastic team effort saw Ciaran Brown go over in the left hand corner after five minutes of the re-start.
George Paul then took the conversion which saw the ball sail over the posts from what looked an impossible angle especially in these conditions.
March now had a two converted try gap and up to this point had shown no relenting to Mistley.
Even when Dan Ryan was yellow carded for a high tackle in the 60 first minute, March did not show any weakness while down to fourteen players for the sin bin 10 minutes.
In the last five minutes, Mistley managed to breach the line from a turnover situation. One of their locks made a touch down which looked as it had been knocked on but it was too little too late for the high flyers.
This was a superb display from the Bears and compared to their previous heavy loss at Bedford this was in a different category and one they should rightly be proud of.
Mistley were good opponents in what was a juddering defensive display played in a very fair manner by both teams
Man-of-the-Match could not be given to one player so two of these defensive titans , Billy Dean and George Gowler were awarded it jointly .
Final score March Bears 14 v 7 Mistley
