Sunday 20th January, Thurrock welcomed Upminster under 13s to Oakfield. This was an interesting fixture as both teams have big squads and it was a development game for both coaches to try out a number of team combinations.

Tees were not sure if Upminster received that memo as they marched on to a commanding lead in the first half where the home side simply had no answer to some excellent play from the Havering boys. Scrum half Zach Humphries scored an early try for the visitors after a swift pick up from a 5 metre scrum. This was quickly followed up with a brace of tries scored by Upminster’s second row, Harry Lee which took the score very quickly to 15-0. The ever ubiquitous second row, Lee was making it one way traffic for the remainder of the first half with Tees defending desperately in their own half.

Upminster pressed home their advantage with some fine ball play through the hands, scoring six more tries from Adams, Kukulskis, Mason-Wright, Stokes. Ben Stokes, in fact, was probably our player pick of the day as his mazy running continued to confuse and torment the Tees defence.

Half time score 45-0 so made us wonder was there any way back for Thurrock. U13 Thurrock boys are not without spirit and with some changes in personnel, Tees really started to apply pressure on the visitors after the interval. Captain Holding, O’Brien and Reynolds made their presence felt and ask the questions of Upminster who were now penned into their own half. It was regrettable that Tees did not score on a number of occasions but that was down to some hugely impressive defending from the visitors.