Rams clocked-up a club record equalling 15 straight wins on Saturday with a 19-3 victory away to Bury St Edmunds. The win was hard fought as both sides snuffed-out each other’s attacks to create a tough physical contest.
Rams defensive coach, Danny Batty, was thrilled with his team’s efforts in Norfolk on Saturday as they restricted a highly dangerous attack to just 3 points. He said afterwards, “I was really pleased with the boys today as they kept their shape and filled the space really well, and even when Bury made breaks, as we knew they would, our energy to close down their runners was fantastic”.
In a game that Rams never quite managed to dominate, the home team had lots of good spells and rallied around the outstanding performances of outside centre, Mark Kohler, and their star forward Tui Uru. Chatting afterwards, Rams Head Coach Seb Reynolds said “Kohler and Uru are excellent players and they really put themselves on the line for their team mates – this made our win today a great credit to our players”.
Bury opened the game the livelier of the two teams and were denied an early score when a touch-down was disallowed for a forward pass. Rams responded with an assault on the Wolf Pack’s line which Greg Illingworth eventually crossed to give his team a 5-0 lead.
Despite much of the possession in the first half, and lots of pressure in the Bury St Edmunds’ 22, Rams could not break-down their opponent’s defence and it was the home side that secured the next score, courtesy of a Jack Johnson penalty on the 36th minute to make the half-time score 5-3 to Rams.
Rams came out the stronger of the two sides in the second half and some good passages of play, orchestrated by Rams’ fly half and man of the match Tom Humberstone, created two second-half tries for the league leaders, one from winger Jak Rossiter and the other from Humberstone himself, who converted both touch-downs to give his team a 19-3 win.
Reynolds summed up the day by paying tribute to his team’s hosts “I am delighted because this was a first class performance from our boys today, and Tom Humberstone did a great job standing in for Alex Seers. You can see just how dangerous the Bury St Edmunds backs can be by the way they moved the ball around in the last quarter in an effort to get back into the game. The only difference between us and a loss today was our brilliant defence and it is a great tribute to Danny Batty that we have got the best defensive record in the national leagues”.

This week Rams will be trying to maintain their 16 point advantage at the top of National 2 South when they welcome rivals Barnes to Old Bath Road, kick-off 2pm. Rams Titans (2nd XV) are also playing Barnes in the Zoo Sports Shield (Division 1).
Supporters are recommended to try and leave cars at home as the ground will be packed.