Tonbridge Juddians 36 Bury St Edmunds 17: National League 2 East match report

By Adam Hookway

Tonbridge Juddians made it two wins out of three with an impressive 36-17 National League 2 East victory over Bury St Edmunds.

Once again Judds were slow starters and, playing into a stiff breeze, shipped two tries inside the first 30 minutes.

However they began to find their rhythm and Ryan Munnelly looked to have scored a try, but was adjudged to have knocked on. Soon afterwards he was forced off with an injury, Tommy Nicoll replacing him.

TJs broke through on 32 minutes when they were too quick for a scrambling Bury defence and a thrust to the line was illegally stopped with a penalty try the result.

Duncan Tout was next on hand to finish some excellent interplay between backs and forwards, and Tom White converted the extras for TJs to lead 14-12. Three more points were lost, though, when White missed a penalty.

Tonbridge started the second half on the front foot and Harvey Young capitalised on poor passing to scamper in from 40 metres, White adding the extras. White then finished off some more thrilling interplay to stretch the lead to 26-12.

The visitors were next on the scoreboard, but missed the conversion while Juddians tightened the screw with a White penalty.

Two yellow cards for the hosts on 60 and 74 minutes made no difference as Bury failed to take advantage, instead replacement Hugo Watson came off the bench to touch down, White adding to his tally from the tee, as Tonbridge took maximum points to sit third in the table.

Tonbridge travel to Old Albanians on Saturday.