Norwich 50 - Twickenham 12.

Norwich, without a win this season and something of a bogey team to Twickenham in recent years were at home to the unbeaten Ts.

From the kick off it was clear that Norwich were intent on making up for their poor recent performances and Twickenham, who had four changes from the previous week, were on the receiving end of that intent. Although the T’s line out worked fairly well they were out played in most other areas of the game. They were not helped by their hooker John Towcock having to leave the pitch with torn knee ligaments after 7 minutes, to be replaced by Dave Thomas who himself left injured just before the half time whistle. There were then uncontested scrums, which to be honest did not do Norwich any favours, who at this point Norwich had scored with monotonous regularity and had amassed 24 points without reply.

Within 5 minutes of the restart they again started scoring, and it was fortunate for the Ts that the tries were not converted as regularly as they were scored. Twickenham were playing on the back foot and being forced into handling errors and flaky decision making by Norwich’s forceful play. Only in the last quarter did they exert any pressure on the Norwich line with a good try by flanker Charlie I’anson and further pressure saw the referee award them a penalty try after forcing Norwich to offend on their line. Even then Norwich had the time to capitalize on another error and run in a try under the posts, this time converted.

The best that can be said is that this was an off day for a team who have had a fine start to the season, and who must now put it behind them and concentrate on their forthcoming game against Wimbledon.

Team; M.Nicholson, J.Towcock, (D.Thomas 7mins) (N.Walker 40mins), R.Moses, J.Davies, A.Wakefield, S.Colquorn, C.I’anson, R.Kirby, A.Rogers, P.Astbury, R.Witham, T.Howden, S.Stone, M.Waddden, B.Isherwood (J.Foley 40mins).