Harwich and Dovercourt 5 Ely Tigers 44 TIGERS best performance of the year so far helped them to a satisfying win. Ely arrived at Harwich and Dovercourt to be greeted by a strong wind and a view of choppy waters. Bolstered by the return of Dan Coulson,

Harwich and Dovercourt 5 Ely Tigers 44

TIGERS' best performance of the year so far helped them to a satisfying win.

Ely arrived at Harwich and Dovercourt to be greeted by a strong wind and a view of choppy waters.

Bolstered by the return of Dan Coulson, Neil Murton, Tim Mills and welcoming Iain Scott on to the wing for his first team debut, the Tigers were confident of getting a result out of this game.

Ely started well, putting Harwich under pressure.

The scoring started following a turnover by strong Ely tackling. Quickly-recycled ball enabled Tom Jackson to beat the full-back to score in the corner.

From the restart, Ely gained the ball and from a scrum, Scott side-stepped three players before scoring in the corner for a 10-0 lead.

Another scrum won against the head saw Stacy Mould pick up and make a break.

Quickly recycled ball enabled Dan Coulson to snipe over for another Ely try, which Gavin Ross converted for a 17-0 lead.

From the kick-off, a great piece of solo play by Lee Coulson saw him ripping the ball off a Harwich player before running through the back line with power and pace to score.

A rare mis-tackle by Ely led to an opposition try. Keen to make amends, Ely forced their way into the Harwich 22-metre area.

A sliced clearance kick was recovered by Callum Palmer, who ran positively before passing to Jackson, who scored in the corner. Gavin Ross converted for a half-time lead of 29-5.

A Tigers line-out developed a rolling before releasing the ball to the backs where quick hands created an overlap for Jackson to score.

Harwich attacked before Lee Coulson stole the ball at a ruck and, after another barn-storming run by Lee Kupyn, quick hands moved the ball to full-back Tim Mills, who ran in from 60 metres for the try of the game.

Finally, Jackson scored his fourth try for a well deserved 44-5 Tigers win.

Biggleswade III 0 Ely Tigers III 24

THIS game started with both teams feeling the cold, so handling suffered, but there was no shortage of enthusiasm.

Ely decided to run the ball rather than kick, with Mark Slater side-stepping his way through the Biggleswade defence on more than one occasion.

One such excursion led to Paulo Cardavez crashing over for the first score of the match, and his first try in competitive rugby.

With the wind in the second half, Ely were able to bring a lot of pressure on to the Biggleswade defence and managed to break down the defence on three more occasions, with Lawrence Cardwell crashing over for a score then David Pople scoring twice more for Ely, leaving the score 24-0 in the Tigers favour, Dave Pople having kicked two conversions.

Ely Tiger-14s 0

Huntingdon Under-14s 24

A COLD day for this hard-fought match, which saw one of the best sides around coming to Ely.

Huntingdon kicked off and immediately came under Ely pressure, resulting in the ball staying in the Huntingdon five-metre zone for almost the rest of the half.

Ely tried all the ways they knew to score but the Huntingdon defence held. Then a missed tackle allowed the inside centre a chance which he took to devastating effect, running 70 metres to score and Ely found themselves down, 7-0 at half-time.

Huntingdon had seen the way to win - very fast hands, missed passes and sheer pace opened up the Ely defence for a second time and the score moved to 12-0.

Two excellent tries ended the match at 24-0 to Huntingdon.