It’s a happy Clap-py

The visitors started brightly, but some good tackling and defensive play stopped them opening the scoring, before fly-half Jan Horring cleared the lines for the hosts.

Having withheld the early pressure Ilford started to apply their own and after nine minutes they approached the Clapton line, and home prop Paul Baldwin put in a tackle on the Ilford flanker Alex Silk. But the referee deemed it to be early and awarded a penalty that David North converted.

With Baldwin also sent to the sin-bin, the home side took advantage of their extra man, when winger Neil Rautenbach crashed over the first try of the day that was also converted by North for a 10-0 lead.

The visitors started to attack the Ilford line again and after 26 minutes Clapton were awarded penalty from five metres out.

Adam Prince took a quick tap and passed to Richard Saunders who saw a gap and made it over the line. Dan Smith slotted home the conversion to cut the lead to just three points.

But on 38 minutes Ilford turned over a scrum against the head on their own 22, and number eight Paul Bailey picked up the ball and broke the length of the pitch to score a brilliant individual try, and despite a missed conversion they were 15-7 up at the break.

A great motivational speech during the interval by coaches Danny Elmer and Marcus Tobin seemed to do the trick when they hit back after only two minutes of the second-half.

Captain Olly Stokes quickly took a penalty and darted for the line and crossed to reduce the points difference to three. Then on 59 minutes Clapton were awarded another penalty on the Ilford ten-metre line. Olly Stokes called Dan Smith forward and he nonchalantly kicked the three points to draw the scores level.

The visitors now had the bit between their teeth and kept applying pressure.

On 65 minutes an infringement on their five-metre line saw another penalty awarded to the Thornwood men.

Again a quick move saw Stokes score his second try of the game to make it 15-20. With the clock running into extra-time Clapton had a lineout on the Ilford 22. Cliff Fearne collected the ball at the front of the line and with the support of the pack was driven to the five-metre line.

With Saunders securing the ball at the back of the maul, and a quick look up to see where his opposing numbers were let him also ran in his second try of the game.

Smith was again off target with the extras, although by then Clapton had not only done enough to secure the points, but leapfrog Wanderers in the table in the process.