Ian Edwards looks to make a break in the 19-14 win at Colchester on Saturday. Pic: Martin Pearl.

London One North: Colchester 14 Eton Manor 19

Eton Manor battled to a magnificent win at Colchester to end the host’s unbeaten home run in an entertaining match where the result was too close to call for most of the game.

Third-placed Manor knew they would need to be at their best to beat their bogey side who had won the bulk of their recent meetings and there was little to separate the teams in the first half.

Good driving runs by John Robinson and Ian Edwards took play into Colchester’s half and quick ball to Manor’s backs gave them the opportunity to test the opposition, but they failed to break through the solid defence.

Manor opened the scoring on 20 minutes when the ball was fed to Alex Hunter who powered though the Colchester defence to score under the posts. Max Murray added the extras for a 7-0 lead.

Colchester responded immediately, putting Manor under pressure and were rewarded when the referee played the advantage for an offside, giving the Colchester full back an easy kick to cut the deficit to 7-3 after 23 minutes.

It was now Manor’s turn to take the game to Colchester, once again using their driving rucks and mauls to good effect.

Unfortunately, poor handling stopped the attack on Colchester’s 10-metre line. From the resulting scrum, Manor won the ball against the head and Murray put in a well-weighted kick into Colchester’s 22 for a defending line-out.

With their tails up, Colchester took the lead with a series of slick moves that led to them creating an overlap which the winger took advantage of to crash over in the far corner for an 8-7 lead at the break.

Yet Manor refused to roll over and regained the advantage when skipper Tryson Goodchild took several Colchester players over the line with him when he crashed over the line for their second try of the match.

Murray made no mistake with the resulting conversion to extend the advantage to 14-8 with just seven second-half minutes played.

Colchester again came back at Manor, but were finding it increasingly difficult to mount any sustained pressure. They were eventually rewarded with a penalty in front of the posts which was easily converted to cut the deficit to three points at 14-11.

Manor refused to let them off the hook and hit back with an unconverted try from Ian Edwards who went over the line from short distance to extend the lead to eight points at 19-11.

Colchester completed the scoring when they slotted a penalty from in front of the posts with the final kick of the game.

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