On a cold and windy morning Bury made the trip to one of the best teams in East Anglia in a determined and focused mood. The watching crowd need not have worried how they would keep warm as both teams contributed brilliantly to a fine spectacle and Bury put to rest any lingering disappointment caused by defeat to the same team in last season’s regional finals.

Bury started the match like they wanted to get it wrapped up early and get back to Suffolk for some Christmas shopping. They opened the scoring in the 2nd minute, Vincent La Starza on hand to drive over when Jack Griggs was held up just short of the line. The early score settled any pre-match nerves and it was good to see the team responding positively to Head Coach Jason Lane’s request to start the match strongly.

The next five minutes were spent largely in the middle of the park as both teams tried to exert control and some big tackles went in – Finlay Blair and Harry Wooldridge impressing in defence and the strong Bury scrum providing a firm foundation for Nico Marchini to make some early breaks. It wasn’t long before captain Vincent La Starza smashed his way through the home defence to double his tally and, in doing so, strengthen the case for his pre-match request to be referred to as “The Bull”!

The strong wind was proving difficult for both sides to contend with, but with Wymondham having it to their backs they made the most of the advantage and fought back well as the half wore on. Their number eight was causing problems for Bury when he took the ball at pace and they scored two good tries in quick succession to take a 12-10 lead into the interval.

After what had ended up being a very tight first half it would not have been a surprise to see more of the same in the second period. However, Bury had different ideas and tore into Wymondham with a heady mixture of skill, spirit and an apparent determination to set the record straight after the disappointment of last season’s corresponding fixture. George Howard kicked off long, and the ball bounced out on the Wymondham 5m line. Wymondham managed to kick clear under great pressure from the Bury forwards but, after Josh Lane expertly picked up and passed to Billy Reid, the play came right back at them. The ruck was formed close to the Wymondham line when Reid was stopped just short after a great run, but Tom Dye saw the chance to pick and go and dive over the line to score. George Howard added the conversion.

Bury started to click up through the gears, and 9 minutes into the second half Vincent La Starza made another strong break. Once again the Wymondham defence held the attack up just short of the line, but not many defences could have stopped the line that Nico Marchini took to score a well-deserved try. George Howard again converted. Bury continued to attack with Henry Cain making several strong breaks. George Howard used the wind advantage intelligently so that even when Wymondham did clear their lines their respite was only short-lived. On 18 minutes Vincent La Starza took a quick free-kick and fed Jack Griggs who did the rest and took Bury into a likely unassailable lead.

Bury were really starting to play well now, confidence flowing and showing heads up rugby, and they continued to impress in attack whilst doing their utmost to quickly snuff out any threats from Wymondham. A likely contender for their try of the season was narrowly denied by the touchline as lovely play saw Charlie Chapman expertly offloading out of the tackle on his own 22m line and the backline charged down field with some lovely handling and Charlie Burrows offering a beautiful support line. He passed out to the flying winger Ollie Cooper who was only 5m away from scoring before the covering defence finally stopped him.

It wasn’t long before Bury scored again however, phase play of the highest order and quick ball from the rucks saw George Howard feign to go outside and then sidestep back inside to touch down for a lovely try. He then converted his own try despite the ever-increasing wind to finish with a well deserved 11 points on the day. Despite the win being safe Bury kept pouring forward and another expertly judged kick was chased down by a speeding Billy Reid. His pressure secured turnover ball for Tom Dye to score his second of the game as he charged up in support. As the game ticked over into the second minute of injury time Wymondham got back on the scoresheet when the referee spotted a series of offsides against the perhaps slightly over-eager Bury defence.

Despite a very close first half, a final score line of 41-19 was justified by the superb nature of Bury’s second half performance. The entire team worked as a unit to deny Wymondham any space or time on the ball; at times their line speed was simply suffocating. The scrum was solid all day, and the pack worked hard to provide quick breakdown ball for the backs, who used it to great effect. The second half display was the best we have seen this season and the commitment and enthusiasm was so pleasing across the whole team. They really enjoy playing together as a squad and are prepared to work so hard for each other – if anybody did miss a tackle the next player made doubly sure of it, and then the favour would be returned if needed. This was certainly a pre-Christmas cracker that bodes well for the final game of 2019 against Ipswich in the Suffolk Cup next weekend. Well done to the entire squad!

Man of the Match: The entire team.