Points rain in against Bancroft

A DEPLETED Bancroft, who sit at the foot of the table, kicked off 2007 with a difficult home game against league leaders Billericay in some very testing conditions on Saturday.

The hosts started solidly and some tough tackling from Matt Robinson, Jason Watton and Russell Thame kept the visitors at bay.

A fine clearance from Mike Horne then led to a lineout that could have seen Bancroft open the scoring.

The Billericay hooker threw to high for his jumper and Dave Patterson gathered to make a run then kicked through only for the chasing Chris Grant to be thwarted by the covering full back.

The 13th minute was an unlucky one for Bancroft as Billericay found an extra player out on the wing to open the scoring with a try, although they were unable to add the extras. The hosts bounced back but the visitors defended well and increased their lead on 20 minutes with a second, unconverted try.

Bancroft's reply was once again spirited and they should have scored after some excellent running from Dan James, Dan Lea and Chris Grant, but Jim Driver was just stopped at the line.

The hosts then had their strongest period of the game, but were unable to turn this into points and went in 0-15 down at the break after conceding a third unconverted try.

The second period started with heavy rain lashing down and it was Billericay who increased their lead ten minutes in with a fourth try that they again failed to convert.

Bancroft showed a lot of heart in attack and defence but Billericay's physical edge allowed them to score three further tries all of which were converted to see the visitors run out easy winners in the end.