This week Brentwood welcomed Holt to King George’s looking to make amends for last season’s home defeat at the hands of the Norfolk based team.

Playing uphill in the first half on a damp November day, it wasn’t Brentwood’s liveliest start, but some early defensive duty went well and eventually Brentwood managed to get a toehold in the game, opening the scoring on about the ten minute mark. A lineout on halfway was well executed, Lewis Pratley breaking off the back of the maul to make ground before Eamon Tiernan crashed up further pulling Holt’s defence narrow. The ball was out quickly to Sam Cappaert who put a lovely flat pass out to Will Attridge in space on the wing, Will drawing the last defender before putting a kick infield, the onrushing Ewan May with the pace to beat the cover to for the try, 5-0.

Holt narrowly missed a penalty attempt a couple of minutes later before Brentwood struck again with 20 minutes on the clock. Initial good work from Eamon Tiernan after a Brentwood lineout saw a strong bust upfield, followed up by a further big metre-making carry from James Stevens to take Brentwood to Holt’s ten metre line. Dan Suttle and James Vogel were next up to carry into heavy traffic before Lewis Pratley had a rumble, throwing an offload that missed the man, but Will McArthur was able to regather and steam through a gap before popping the ball to Will Attridge. Clearly someone has been practicing their kick throughs, another one punted infield perfectly, this time Eamon Tiernan chasing it down for the try, 10-0.

If Brentwood thought they were going to have everything their own way though, Holt clearly were not on the same page and the momentum of the game shifted quite drastically when, after a good attacking period from Holt, Alfie Adams saw yellow for a penalty in the 22 and Holt took the opportunity to reduce Brentwood’s lead to 10-3.

Five minutes later Holt drew level after a great 50/22 effort gave them a lineout deep in Brentwood’s 22 and a good break and offload following it saw the converted try put the score at 10-10.

It went from bad to worse just a couple of minutes later when a Holt intercept from a Brentwood attack saw them get back to halfway before recycling quickly and shipping it to the other wing, outpacing Brentwood’s cover to go in under the posts and take a 10-17 lead before James Vogel earned the icing on the just-before-half-time cake and also got yellow carded…

I’m going to assume the half time team talk didn’t include “miss a few tackles and let Holt score a length of the fielder directly from the restart” but unfortunately for Brentwood that’s exactly what happened and suddenly the deficit was 10-24 and about the furthest thing from the start to the second half that Brentwood would have hoped for.

Brentwood of last season may have capitulated at this point but there is a much stronger mental fortitude to Brentwood this season and so they dusted themselves off and looked to make amends.

Fortunately for the impatient Brentwood crowd it didn’t take too long, a six-minute blitz seeing Brentwood score two quick tries. The first started when Jack Rocke was quickly onto a loose lineout from Holt, Tom Walker breaking through several tackles a few phases later to take Brentwood to the 22 before Eamon Tiernan powered down the blindside, Sam Cappaert put Tom Walker through once more on the inside pass and Eamon again recollected, bouncing through a couple of tackles for the try, 17-22 with Sam Cappaert’s conversion.

Brentwood came again when a quick lineout allowed Ewan May to boot the ball into a lot of space, Colby Dobson chasing up hard and forcing a Holt knock on in the tackle which was regathered by Ewan. James Vogel and Alfie Adams added some ballast in the midfield before Kieran Ballinger darted through a gap at the side of the ruck and found Sam Cappaert with the offload to make it up to the 22. Alfie Adams and Dan Suttle combined to put Luke Watson in some space for a foray down the wing, pulling in the cover and getting the pass away to Will Attridge who stepped the last man to go in at the corner, 22-24.

Five minutes later Brentwood pulled back into the lead when a penalty was stuck in the corner. The lineout to James Killington was good, Will McArthur breaking before Alfie Adams had another carry and then Kieran Ballinger whipped the ball out to the backs, some lovely dummy running seeing Tom Walker very nearly make the line but just being tackled short, the ball coming out to James Killington who popped to James Stevens to batter over. Sam Cappaert added the extras, 29-24.

It was a lead Brentwood would not relinquish, a sixth try coming about eight minutes later when a huge shove from Brentwood won a scrum penalty and the ball went into the corner once more. This time Jack Rocke remembered he was meant to be participating in a pre-called lineout move and, having found James Killington with the throw, wrapped round to recollect the ball and pass to Eamon Tiernan who tore through at full velocity to go over untouched for his hattrick and an in-goal roly-poly, Jack celebrating as if he’d scored it himself…with Sam’s conversion, 36-24.

Brentwood’s seventh and final try came with 5ish minutes to go when Holt slipped off a tackle on Tom Walker in Brentwood’s half, Tom breaking the line and making it to nearly the 22 before being caught. Some lovely interplay between James Vogel, Ewan May and William Dunleavy took Brentwood to within 5 of the line before Holt killed the ball and Brentwood were awarded the penalty. It was now Jack Rocke’s time to shine, running 50 metres, handing off 7 defenders and stepping a further 3 before dummying the last man for the try…or, Brentwood popped the ball in the corner and the maul was good, surging over with Jack Rocke dotting the ball down and the back – I’ll let you decide what’s the true version of events…Sam added the conversion, 43-24 which is how it would remain at fulltime.

For Brentwood in the end this was a good win with some excellent attacking play and pleasing to see the composure shown when they found themselves two scores adrift of a lively Holt team.

Up next are Rochford who have come down from the league above but currently sit in 9th place, their two wins so far having come against Holt and Stowmarket. If the England Rugby website is to be believed (and let’s be honest, it’s not exactly reliable…) the last time the pair met in the league was 2013 with Brentwood running out winners in that game, something 2024 Brentwood will be hoping to repeat 11 years later.