Cambridge run in eight tries to beat Rosslyn Park 50-28 in National League 1 on Saturday
The tries flowed as Cambridge chalked up a 50-28 home victory over Rosslyn Park on Saturday.
The title-chasing hosts ran in a total of eight tries as they recovered from an early setback to win the National League 1 encounter by a convincing margin, while the visitors contributed four themselves to snap up a bonus point.
Richie Williams’ Cambridge were quick out of the traps and after a period of early pressure they broke the deadlock courtesy of Seb Brownhill’s try, which was converted by Steffan James.
However, rather than kickstart the home side’s push towards victory, Rosslyn Park instead responded positively.
Park were helped by the yellow card dished out to Cambridge’s Joe Tarrant and they made their numerical advantage count with tries from Sam Garvey, Arthur Ellis and Max Trimble, all of which were converted by Craig Holland for a 21-7 lead with 20 minutes on the referee’s watch.
But once Tarrant returned and Cambridge were back up to a full complement of players they turned the screw and a quickfire hat-trick from Matt Hema in the space of 11 minutes – two of which James converted – wrestled back the ascendancy for his team at 26-21 heading into the break.
The division’s leading try-scorer Kwaku Asiedu was first to make his mark in the second half, dotting down for the 21st time this season on the hour mark to open up a three-try gap on his team-mate and nearest challenger Ben Brownlie.
And that was followed by a Kieran Duffin try and two courtesy of Joe Green, with James on target with two conversions to complete the job for Cambridge.
Nevertheless, the final say on proceedings at Volac Park went the way of the fourth-placed visitors as Jake Buckingham went over.
With table-topping Rams winning narrowly on the road at Birmingham Moseley 24-21, Cambridge’s gap to the summit remains at seven points.
They will hope to make some inroads when they travel to Esher on Saturday (March 4), while Rams host second-from-bottom Leeds Tykes on the same day.
Elsewhere in Regional 1 South East, neighbouring Shelford will return to action on Saturday after sitting out last weekend.
Will Cotterill’s side, who sit second in the table, will play what is their penultimate match of the season away at bottom-of-the-table Medway.
Cantabrigian, meanwhile, bounced back from a defeat last time out by winning 36-32 at home against Southwold in the Counties 1 Eastern Counties.
That victory has lifted Cantabs up to fifth in the standings ahead of Saturday’s home encounter against second-placed Holt.