COLCHESTER Rugby Club continued their remarkable try-scoring spree, bringing up a half-century of points as they ruthlessly dispatched Bedford Athletic in their biggest win of the season on a freezing day in the East Midlands, writes EDWARD MARRIAGE.
Wing Luke Rokomoce stole the headlines with a hat-trick in the 50-24 victory, the Blacks' eight tries taking their tally to an impressive 36 in seven matches.
Not for the first time this season, this was a proverbial game of two halves.
After an evenly-matched first period, Colchester turned on the style after the break to complete a home-and-away double over Athletic.
Wearing their new bright yellow away kit, Colchester welcomed back full-back Jimmy Mpailane from injury but were without forwards Danny Whiteman and Liam Pickett, Graham Hay starting at lock.
In a ding-dong first half the two sides exchanged tries almost at will.
Corey Button, starting at scrum-half, set the ball rolling with the first of his two well-taken scores.
With the conversion missed, Luke Denham’s converted try moments later put Bedford ahead for the only time in the game.
Dylan Read fed Button for his second, the try-scorer converting to put Colchester 12-7 ahead.
Stephen Woodhead then crossed for Bedford to level the scores but Colchester soon regained the lead, Ross Taylor finishing off a slick back-line move.
On cue, back came Bedford, Denham scoring his second.
Not content to end the half honours even, Rokomoce finished off a lovely move to bring up another bonus point for Colchester, Mpailane’s conversion making it 24-17 at the break.
With Alex Mitchell replacing brother James, Bedford drew level yet again as Ryan Taylor’s converted try early in the second half made it 24-24.
Haydn Sykes came on for Hay and Colchester were reduced to 14 men as Mpailane saw yellow for a high tackle.
Then Button was forced off with a knee injury to be replaced by Ed Parry.
But from that point Colchester utterly dominated, scoring 26 unanswered points.
Read picked up off the base of a scrum to feed the lively Parry for try number five, while Rokomoce scooted in down the left for his second minutes later.
Jacob Bodkin capped a fine performance with the seventh, all three tries converted by Chris Lewis.
Rokomoce then completed his hat-trick with the final play, in the process earning himself the coach’s man-of-the-match bubbly jointly with Bodkin.
“Outstanding, really happy with that,” was the verdict of head coach Craig Burrows, who was particularly pleased with the game management in the final half hour.
“We scored three really brilliant tries which makes me smile from ear to ear because they were training park moves, brilliantly executed at the right time in the right areas of the field.
“I don’t mind when the game is open and we start executing individual skills but I like sticking to the game plan, and that’s what we did today.”
Frozen pitches meant half the league’s matches were postponed, with Colchester's win on Bedford’s all-weather pitch lifting them to fourth in the table with the final match of the year, against local rivals Sudbury, on Saturday at Raven Park (3pm).
Elsewhere the Ravens narrowly lost 29-26 at home to Newmarket, while Kings lost their second competitive match 83-7 at Thurrock.
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