Beccles faced their toughest opposition to date when they welcomed Norwich Union to Beef Meadow - but they came through it to go marching on at the top of Eastern Counties 1N.

Some good defence and some missed opportunities meant it took Beccles 10 minutes to get their first score. Union were trying to play out of their own half when Hannam got his hands on the ball and ran in for a well timed intercept try.

Kauri then added a penalty to give Beccles a 10-0 lead.

As the half progressed the visitors were getting more and more possession and hit back with two tries just before the break to take a four point lead.

However it didn’t take long before Hannam got his second interception of the day, reading the pass well and going clean through.

Ten minutes later some good attacking play by the visitors lead to their third try but Beccles remained resolute and through some good moves and some tight work with the forwards, Gardiner was able to go over and the hosts had a 24-19 lead.

Despite some great goalline defence Union scored again to level the scores. Then, with time running out, a turn-over in the Union half meant Beccles had a chance. The forwards were able to march their way to a couple of metres outside the try line and it took a nice pass by Kauri to give Tris Holtzer a chance to power his way over two defenders and touch down for a try, his fourth in his last three games.

Beccles ended up winners 29-24 after a great performance from both teams, with Kauri contributing a penalty and three conversions. Now nine points clear at the top, they visited Norwich II tomorrow.

The second team managed to field a team for a third week in a row. They went down 76-12 to a strong Crusaders II and will be looking to continue their development with another home game against Thetford II on Saturday.

A clinical first half of team rugby saw Beccles Under-14s run in seven tries in front of a sizeable home crowd to set up a 55-33 win over Swaffham Under-14s. Beccles dominated both set pieces and the open contested areas and this allowed the ever improving backline to score some superb support team tries out wide.

The second half was much tougher but after conceding five unanswered tries, the Bulls finally responded with two final waves of green and black to add to their tally..