Combe lose season opener

Southend ran out comfortable winners in the Shield div 2 opener but the scoreline although shows a heavy defeat, does not tell the full story.

With players missing through injury, holiday, work commitments and a break down en route, the Extra's had to rely on a number of players stepping up from the 3rd team and youth team, in fact, we were lucky to have a side at all and the coaches were begging stealing and borrowing players pretty much up until the night before the game, not the best preparation!!

With such a threadbare squad it did feel like their was an inevitability about the result but there is absolutely no shame in losing to the better side who included 10 replacements (all used) in their mach day squad. To a man, the X Men stepped up to the mark and played some exceptional rugby given the circumstances, Southend had to work for every point as our guy's never gave up despite such adversity.

A brace of try's scored by winger Dan Hamilton were well taken and the result of some good running rugby.

Thank you to all of the guys that stepped up and helped us out, you were magnificent.

Squad:
Ross Denton
Jack Dupay
Reece Conlon
Billy Bignell
Connor Jarrold
Anthony Creed
Jamie Taylor
Rob Sergenor
Josh Maybank
James Askew
Phillip Loyden
Joe Simpson
Luke Maybank
Dan Hamilton
Mark McDermott
Reis Buckland
Josh Livett
Mark Nimmo