YM Suffer Their First Away Defeat

West Norfolk came quickly out of the blocks, catching out a somewhat sleepy YM back line through good supporting play. This allowed them to score three converted tries within the first ten minutes which placed YM on the back foot right from the start.

YM had a good spell of dominating play through the next twenty minutes when it looked like they might find their rhythm but unfortunately found at times they were having the ball stripped from them when agonizingly close to the West Norfolk Line. West Norfolk were quick to counter and a good tackle and back track by Simon Arnold and Will Davis managed to stop the score increasing further against YM.

YM's luck looked like it may turned just before the break when West Norfolk had a player sent to the bin due to playing the ball on the floor.
YM instantly capitalised from this with the ball coming from the line-out straight to the YM backs who were able to play the ball through quick hands out wide to enable the sprightly Simon Arnold to run straight over the West Norfolk try line. James Taber attempted the difficult conversion from 5m out from the touchline but unfortunately missed. YM were trailing 21-5 at half time.

YM started the second half strongly, looking to put pressure on the weakened West Norfolk side but a well organised and drilled West Norfolk defence didn’t allow this to happen, again managing to strip YM of the ball to enable them to clear their lines.

The latter part of the half was dominated by West Norfolk who were able to punish a rather lacklustre YM side that were not able to retain the ball well enough and were often found to have their defensive line spread across the field. This allowed West Norfolk to pick holes and run the ball across the line.

YM continued to battle hard when in attack and this paid off with a superb chip over the West Norfolk back line by Tommy Hale which enabled James Taber to touch the ball down for a YM try. Unfortunately James Taber's conversion fell short of the posts due to a howling wind that had been attacking the players all game.

The match finished 68-10 to West Norfolk leaving an unusually disorganised YM defence with plenty to work on over the next week before they have their second home game of the season against Cantabrigian at The Street.

Report by Alex Wold