Rochford's awesome display of power and speed dismantled London League Three pacesetters Hadleigh.

Rochford's hesitant start on a grey day in Suffolk was punished by an early penalty - but Matt Barber promptly ran in a try after some innovative work from centre Andy Hawes.

The Magnolia Road side proceeded to take the game to Hadleigh, with their forwards dominating set-play as well as the loose, where John Payne was particularly outstanding.

Rochford's pacy backs were thus allowed to stretch Hadleigh's defence, and it was certainly against the run of play when Hadleigh took the lead with a penalty.

However, the sixth-placed Essex visitors continued to force the pace.

A spell of exciting interplay between the forwards and backs put in James Forbes to dive over for a try, converted by Mark Sexton.

Hadleigh began to run out of ideas, and relied too much on high kicks into Rochford territory.

However, Rochford's defence was tight, enabling them to counter-attack and trouble Hadleigh.

Yet the pace began to drop, and Rochford made errors as the contest became scrappy. One such mistake let in Hadleigh for a touch-down after a long kick upfield - narrowing the deficit to a point.

Barber, though, came to Rochford's rescue, finishing off a superb move to score in the corner.

Hadleigh raised their game in the final minutes, but Rochford survived some nerve-wracking moments.

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