Walden wound up the first half of the season with a fine win over Norwich in a closely fought contest played in bright winter sunshine.
For the first 20 mins both sides vied for territory with Norwich having the better of the early exchanges as Walden struggled at times to get out of their half.
Eventually the pressure told and Walden had to carry the ball back over their line and conceded and 5 metre scrum. This was the area of the game that Norwich were most dominant and they proceeded to push the Walden pack backwards scoring the first points of the game wide out. 5- 0 after 20 mins.
Walden hit back and finally worked the ball into the Norwich 22, setting up several phases sucking in the Norwich defence and attacked down the right. Then they set up another ruck in the centre of the park and quick thinking by fly half Tom Price switched the ball to the left and some quick hands had the ball out to left wing David Patch who ran in unopposed in the corner just getting the ball down before he slid over the dead ball line to level the score at 5 each.
On the half hour mark Norwich had set up another attack and this time they broke through the centres to score under the posts for a converted try to go 12 – 5 in front.
Walden managed to narrow the gap on the stroke of half time when winger Paul Marshall gratefully accepted a pass after a sweeping backs move diving over in the corner to leave the half time score at 12 – 10.
With the slight breeze and the low sun now favouring the home team Walden made full use of these advantages in the second half. With the line out working well and the scrum gaining a bit of parity gradually things started going Walden's way and they deservedly took the lead for the first time in the match when they converted a penalty in front of the posts putting them 13 -12 up after 60 mins.
Walden continued to run everything back at the visitors who were struggling to clear their lines and from one of these attacks they scored the best try of the game as phase after phase the forwards gradually worked the ball up inside the visitors 22 and stayed patient until they knew the chance was on, the ball was quickly spun down the line for Marshall to score his second try as he went over in the corner to stretch the lead to 6 points at 18 – 12 with 10 mins still remaining.
Walden were playing good controlled rugby and did not let Norwich have any chances of scoring as they made sure there defensive patterns were good.
With 3 mins of the game remaining Norwich conceded a penalty fully 40 metres out and Tom Price coolly stepped up and kicked the ball through the posts to put Walden 2 scores in front at 21 – 12 with 2 mins to go.
For the last 2 mins Norwich attacked but some fine defence kept them out and they might regret not taking a kickable penalty to gain the losing bonus point. Walden had one last chance to score their fourth try but as they turned the ball over and centre Mark Kimberly burst up the centre a desperate tackle on half way line forced the knock on and the game was over.
A good win against strong opposition moves Walden up to 5th in the table and still only 4 points behind the league leaders.
Another difficult game next week as they take on 3rd placed Diss at Henham.