Chris Green urges Southend Rugby Club to learn from defeat to Shelford (From Echo)

Chris Green urges Southend Rugby Club to learn from defeat to Shelford

11:56am Tuesday 11th September 2012 in Sport By Chris Phillips

SOUTHEND'S director of rugby Chris Green has demanded his young team learn lessons from their disappointing 59-25 defeat at Shelford on Saturday.

A disastrous 20 minute spell in the first half saw the home-side run in four tries on their way to recording a comprehensive victory And that infuriated Green.

“We were 6-3 up when Shelford scored with an intercepted try and after that we just imploded,” said Green.

“Our whole demeanour seemed to change straight away and they scored four times in no time at all which was really poor.

“We need to learn from that and learn quickly too because that's what you have to do if you want to be able to compete at this level.”

Southend raced in to an early 6-0 against their hosts with fly half Liam MacGeachy scoring two penalties.

But Shelford replied with a penalty of their own from Steve Smith and then went in front in the 17th minute when Danny Cleare's attempted pass inside was intercepted by Gerhard Wessels who ran through to score.

Smith converted to make it 10-6 and, just two minutes, winger Phil Bullen-Brown stormed through to extend the lead by a further five points.

A yellow card to Seasiders flanker Alan Barker then followed and Shelford immediately ran in two more tries with Shingia Chiwanga and Wessels both touching down.

A scrambling try from prop Luke Beales then followed and Southend were 30-6 behind at the break.

At the start of the second half, second row Redmond Newberry went over from a line-out and another penalty from Smith then made it 38-6.

Southend finally replied when a brilliant cross-field kick from MacGeachy picked out Cleare who scored under the posts.

MacGeachy added the extras but Shelford responded with a try from winger Charles Baker after what had seemed like a blatant forward pass to make it 45-13.

The Seasiders hit back with Mark Billings speeding through to score and MacGeachy slotting over the conversion.

But that was followed by another intercepted try from Shelford as Taniela Bakoso touched down and Smith converted.

Billings soon continued his own fine start to the season with another try for Southend but it was Shelford who had the final say with hooker Nigel Conroy going over and Smith adding the extra two points to complete a miserable afternoon for the visitors.

Southend: Billings, Sansom, Vaughan, Ashton, Cleare, MacGeachy, Branch, Bailey, Keenan, Strachan, Cook, Douglas, Barker, Guess, Hudson.

Replacements: Grier, Reeman, Ox, Jones & Burr