Newmarket 31 – 7 Ely

Straight from the opening drop out, Newmarket had Ely under pressure. Following good driving by Ethan Brown, first Ben Jeacock and then Chris Le got over the try line only to be held up. However, it was third time lucky as the rock-solid scrum gave Joe Stafford the opportunity to crash over. His conversion was the first of three successful kicks.

It was closely followed by a second try as Tom Chandler at scrum-half picked up from a Newmarket heel and got close enough to the line for Le to have the simple job of diving over.

It looked as if Newmarket might rack up a cricket score but they then started giving away a series of penalties for infringements, around the ruck and at the line-out, that allowed Ely to clear pressure away from their lines. When the home side did get close to the try line they too often failed to spot the overlaps and Ely snuffed out the direct attacks.

However, Ely found it difficult to lift the pressure entirely and the Newmarket backs were quickly on them as they struggled to gather ball from some excellent territorial kicking from Stafford and Nathan Buckle. First Gwilym Davies caught the opposition winger behind his own line and then Iain Moffat chased down the ball, allowing Tom Wills to drive forward and present a short range scoring opportunity to Dan Bristow.

With Lewis Heap on at scrum-half there was time for a fourth try before half-time. The forwards drove the ball from near the half-way line to within ten metres. Heap darted for the line and Stafford was there to snaffle the ball and score another short-range try.

With the wind in their faces, Newmarket found it much harder going in the second half. A re-invigorated Ely side camped near their try line and crossed it twice in the first ten minutes. Their No. 8 was unlucky to knock-on the first time, but they soon put that right from a tapped penalty for a seven point score.

Newmarket soon returned the favour as strong runs by Moffat and driving by the front row of Ollie Sanusi Bartlett, Dan Downing and Wills allowed the last of these to cross the line, only to be penalised for a double movement in getting the ball down. Although a number of backs moves then petered out, Newmarket were soon back near the line, with newcomers Matt Marsh and Anton Phillips heavily involved in driving mauls, and this time man of the match Bristow was on hand to pick up his second try of the day.

The home side had a couple of further scoring chances before the final whistle sounded, but were foiled by the Ely full-back who first dumped Bristow into touch and then repeated the performance to thwart a strong run by Toby Colletta on the wing.