Westcombe Park Veterans 0

Rochford Veterans 64

Rochford veterans salvaged some happiness from a miserable weekend for their club when they powered their way to a resounding victory against Westcombe Park veterans.

The London League club's First team had gone down in the big local derby with Canvey and there were also defeats for their second, A and B teams.

But the Vets cheered everyone up as they ran riot against Park, scoring through Gareth Chandler (two tries), Robin Peppiat (two), Ashley Colleridge (two, plus two conversions) and a try apiece from Dave Gradon, Martin Spencer and Jason Paul.

Graham Taylor added five conversions.

Hope close in on Vase

Stanford-Le-Hope 16

Lakenham Hewett 11

Stanford-Le-Hope took a significant step towards keeping the Tetley's Bitter Vase in south-east Essex when they dug deep into their energy reserves to knock out Lakenham Hewett in Saturday's fifth round.

Billericay did Essex proud by storming to victory in the competition last season and Stanford forward Darren Watkins reckons his progressing side have a good chance of repeating the success of their Eastern Counties rivals.

Watkins said: "We're top of the league, undefeated, and there is no reason why we can't get to Twickenham. Billericay won it last year and it would be great to emulate them and keep the Vase down south.

"But we have to pay tribute to our supporters. Without them, we wouldn't have been able to dig as deep as we did."

Indeed, Stanford have a huge debt to pay to the 200-strong crowd after an uninspiring performance saw them trailing 11-3 midway through the second half.

Their forward line, in particular, was struggling to win enough ball to supply their backs with scoring opportunities.

But, with the crowd's support, they somehow found the energy to step up a gear and Jamie Daisley crashed over for a try, converted by Dave Kelway, which brought them to within a point of Lakenham.

Seizing the initiative, Stanford then produced some fierce pressure but were continually frustrated by spirited Lakenham defending. When Kelway missed a penalty chance it looked as though Stranford's hopes of making Thursday's sixth-round draw were going to be shattered.

However, Kelway steadied his nerves to nail a vital penalty and the forward line of Kevin Dann, Gary Wooffitt and Darren Watkins headed off any thoughts of a Lakenham comeback when they set up the clinching score for No 8 Darren Finnegan.

Too easy for Billericay

Billericay 64

Old Cooperians 0

Old Cooperians turned up at Willowbrook with only 13 players and were never going to put up much of a challenge to Billericay in a lopsided Eastern Counties clash.

All scrums were uncontested because Old Coops didn't have enough players to form a front row, and this made things considerably less interesting for Billericay because scrummaging is a strong point.

Billericay opened the scoring within 10 minutes through Robin Taylor. Fly-half John Steven converted and the home team continued to rack up the points on a regular basis.

First, scrum-half Glenn Smith scored a great individual effort, then Steven scored a try of his own, putting it between the posts to make the conversion easier for himself. The try came from a line-out won by Roger Moore, who had a great game at No 8.

Andy Collings went over to increase Billericay's lead and further scores came from flanker John Bailey and promoted second team players Robin Taylor (two) David Wicks and Mark Yates.

Yates was another who had a great game, working hard in the loose to devastate the Old Coops defence. Substitute prop David Hyett also did well and scored the final try.

Despite the scoreline Billericay were uninspiring and need to pull up their socks when they play Woodbridge next week.

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