Ladies make it a perfect 10 to close in on title

West Norfolk Ladies defeated nearest rivals Colchester to move within touching distance of the NC2 Midlands East title at the weekend.The team’s fantastic 33-20 over Colchester Iceni left them with an 11-point lead at the summit with 10 points left to play.Backs coach James Burroughs, whose side have won all 10 of their league fixtures so far this season, said “Well, what an absolute cracker, even the coaches feel like they’ve played.”To beat a high-flying Iceni team in what can only be described as a battle is a massive achievement.”Every player made a statement of their intention and commitment to the team, so very proud.”Sunday’s long-awaited, top of the table clash between West Norfolk and Colchester Iceni got off with a bang.From the kick-off, the two premier teams in the league threw everything at each other in a physical battle. West, with the bigger and more experienced pack, hit the breakdowns hard and recycled quickly, every impact driving Colchester backwards. Four minutes in, the hosts released the backs and Freya Gracie, burst through the defence to score West’s opening try with the ever-reliable Jade Nicholson adding the conversion.From the restart, Colchester rallied, realising they couldn’t take the play through the central channel they spun the ball out to the wings, but crunching tackles from West wingers OJ Middleton-Jones and Jess Milnes shut them down repeatedly.West Norfolk’s pressure led to a turnover 10 yards from their line, but an unforced handling error allowed Colchester to regather the ball and run in an easy, unconverted try. West Norfolk sprinted back to the restart and resumed pressure, the play was end-to-end with both sides producing huge defensive efforts to shut each other out.The home side dominated the set piece, winning three against the head in the first half, one giving an ideal platform for Gracie to run in her second try Once again, the visitors reset and came back at West, once more they scored but didn’t convert.The host outfit sensed the need to push for another score before the break and after a few more near misses, they got the ball to Jess Milnes who turned on the gas and left the defence behind, to take West Norfolk into the break 19-10 ahead. Captain EJ Watson gave a rousing half-time talk and the home side were raring to go again.It didn’t take long for some slick passing to pay off and once again Milnes was released fromher wing and from the halfway line she beat four defenders to run in under the post and again Nicholson converted.Colchester’s backs stepped things up in the second half, pulling off lovely switches and loops and only thanks to some body-on-the-line stuff from West were they kept at bay. The visitors still scored the next two tries and with 10 minutes to go West only had a six-point lead.But West never let their heads drop and despite both sides being tired and suffering injury replacements, once more they pushed on.Hard runs by the exhausted forwards kept pushing Colchester back.They thought they had it won with a scrum on the five-metre line, only to lose their only scrum of the day. But the backs quickly regained the ball and from a breakdown fly-half Meg Burrough saw the gap and wove through the mass of Iceni players to score.One more conversion for Nicholson – her fourth of the day – saw a massive celebration from the sidelines and the balcony and shortly after the whistle blew for full-time.Forward of the Match: Alice Middleton-Jones, sponsored by Nimmo Industrial Buildings.Back of the Match: OJ Middleton-Jones, sponsored by BPE Consultancy.