Ely Tigers moved up to third in the London Division Three (Eastern Counties) standings after enjoying a crushing 62-7 victory over local rivals Wisbech on Saturday.
Ely’s points came courtesy of a hat-trick from captain Joel Scott-Paul, braces from Luke Cornwell and Matt McCarthy, plus Tom Jackson, Paul Dewey and Stirling Fenton all touching down for one apiece.
Josh Anderson scored Wisbech’s only try of the game, which Jack Malkin converted from a testing angle.
Ely are next in action when they travel to basement side Lowestoft and Yarmouth on Saturday January 6th and Scott-Paul is calling on his side to pick up where they left off after the Christmas break.
“We want to come back after Christmas and hit the ground running,” he said.
“I thought we were excellent against Wisbech and while they didn’t have their strongest side out, we still dominated the game really well and to be honest it could have been by more.”
Lowestoft and Yarmouth have lost all 12 of their league matches this season and were on the wrong end of a 56-0 defeat at Southwold last time out but the Tigers’ skipper knows his side can’t afford to return to action feeling complacent.
He said: “We can’t afford to get complacent, we have to keep going and keep focused on the job in hand.
“If you get complacent you start to do silly things and we know Lowestoft and Yarmouth aren’t having the best of seasons but we still have a job to do over there and that is to go and win the game.”
“We want to try and keep the pressure on the top two and try to push hard for a second-place finish, so can’t afford to start slowly after Christmas.
“It is good when you are scoring points, the squad is on a high and that is something we want to take into the second half of the season.”
Victory for the Tigers will ensure they keep the pressure on first placed Southwold and second placed Stowmarket, who have both knocked up 55 points from their 12 fixtures; eight more than Ely.
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