After losing narrowly the previous week to one of the league's top teams, Romford & Gidea Park, Brentwood were hosts to Southend on a cold but bright Saturday which favoured flowing open rugby.

With Southend, a once mighty force in Eastern Counties rugby, now languishing near the foot of the league, Brentwood's supporters were anticipating a home victory.

Brentwood kicked off downhill but despite good scrummaging, Southend, coached by Dave Masdin (last year's coach), had all the early pressure.

However, Brentwood's pack soon stormed back using the right hand corner for a basis of attack.

First Killington, then Shaw and finally Williams linked up to put the second row forward over for a try.

Van Gooyen missed the conversion and it was not to be his day as most of his kicks to goal and touch were off target.

Brentwood maintained their forward dominance, with Shaw at No. 8 playing well, and a second try was added, Fowley taking the final pass from Shaw.

With the score at 10-0 and the home encamped in Southend's 22 more scores should have followed but with the try line beckoning errors and wrong options were creeping into Brentwood's game.

Early in the second half Southend kicked a penalty as Brentwood's play became complacent.

In patches Brentwood were exciting and from a penalty kick to touch another well controlled forward move took Fowley over between the posts.

Van Gooyen kicked the conversion to give the home side a 17-3 lead.

However, Brentwood continued to be sloppy in patches, the line-outs were being lost by bad throwing and simple penalties were given away to continuously take pressure off a beleagued Southend side.

With time approaching the home team were awarded a penalty in front of the posts. Van Gooyen obliged to give Brentwood a 20-3 win.

With a friendly this Saturday at Sevenoaks, the Brentwood coaches must look for greater control of the ball, to capitalise on try-scoring options other than from the back room, and to insist on total discipline with regard to backchat to the referee.

Total concentration on the game for eighty minutes will surely lead to more substantial victories.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.