Ionians on the rise 
as Greens are taught a lesson

Ionians climbed back up to seventh with their fifth win from 10 games.

The visitors took a second-minute lead with winger Simon Perry dashed free but it was Henley’s only score.

Centre Alex Crockett and winger Sam Wilson struck back with tries and Isaac Green converted the latter.

A penalty followed before flanker Will Foden was credited with a try after a driving maul to put Ionians 20-5 ahead at the break.

Henley came out well for the second half, but Ionians held firm and extended their lead with Foden scoring another on 48 minutes, again from a driving maul which Green converted.

Centre Ben Winterburn got the fifth try on 66 minutes after some patient build-up.

Loughborough Students taught Wharfedale how to control possession and dominate territory by mixing phases of play as they won 30-8.

The Students sometimes went through 20 phases of play before either surrendering possession or scoring as they did five times.

Wharfedale won all their own lineout and allowed Loughborough meagre possession from this set-piece.

The Greens were dominant in the scrums and caused the home side problems on their own put-in.

Mistakes were to prove costly, however, especially when three long kicks by Loughborough were fumbled and valuable field position was squandered.

Dale started brightly and were three points ahead from Jamie Guy’s penalty. This was cancelled out two minutes later when William Edwards replied from a similar angle and distance.

Playing into the breeze, Dale shared the honours in the first half and were only trailing by a converted try from George de Cothi. A lovely dummy from the scrum-half created space for him to nip over.

Rotimi Segun, Paolo Odogwu, twice, and Andrew Boyce scored unconverted tries in the second half with Dale’s Chris Howick crossing for an unconverted consolation try.