Eton Manor's Joel Wakeford makes ground

Eton Manor 38 Basildon 21

Eton Manor continued their unbeaten start to the season with a fine victory over newly-promoted Basildon at New Wilderness on Saturday.

The Redbridge outfit have made the perfect start to the new campaign and had high hopes of continuing the winning run against opponents who have yet to win since coming up, but proved to be tenacious opponents.

Separate

There was little to separate the two teams during the opening exchanges until Ben Thomas made the most of good build-up play to break through two tackles and touch down between the posts for a converted try.

The lead was short-lived as Basildon continued to attack inside Manor’s 22, eventually winning a penalty close to the line which they barged over to score and then converted to level things up at 7-7.

Manor replied with a try from Ian Edwards that was converted by Reece Reed for 14-7 and the hosts appeared to have the upper hand when Reed crashed over for a score that he also converted to lead 21-7 at the break.

Yet Basildon refused to roll over and cut the deficit to seven points as their outside centre squeezed through the defence to cross over and the extras were added from a difficult kick out wide to leave the score 21-14.

Thomas got Manor back on track when he slotted a penalty for 24-14 and then gave themselves some breathing space when Ian Edward touched down for a try converted by Thomas for a 31-14 advantage.

But still Basildon refused to concede defeat and replied with another converted try to leave the score 31-21 as the clock ticked down.

Character

Then it was Manor’s turn to show the character that has seen them win both of their last two games and they upped the tempo and charged forward.

Their efforts were rewarded with a try from Michael Eghan which was converted to leave the final score at 38-21.