Colchester secured a deserved try bonus point but were ultimately well beaten 28-57 by promotion-hopefuls Barnes on a freezing afternoon at Raven Park.

The Blacks can have little argument with the 9-4 try count in favour of the Londoners, who climbed to second in National 2 East, but the hosts did more than enough to keep the sizeable crowd warm, once the morning fog had cleared.

As in the first fixture between the sides in September, Barnes’s rolling maul proved a potent weapon, hooker Matt Humphreys benefitting with four tries.
“They’re an unbelievable side,” conceded Colchester head coach Mike Haywood. The compliment was returned by the Barnes coaching staff who were full of praise for their host’s endeavours.

Colchester started brightly, with Danny Whiteman latching on to a storming break by Will Blakemore. But it was Barnes who went into a 12-0 lead, flyhalf Will Nicholson jinking through heavy traffic for the first try, then wing Fin Matthews gathered a wicked bounce to cross.

Undaunted, Colchester forced a series of penalties in the red zone. From one, Francois Rossouw looped round the back of the line-out and Luke Rokomoce, starting on the wing, pounced to score.

Callum Jeffery’s yellow card on 26 minutes for collapsing a maul proved costly. While Colchester were down to 14, Humphreys completed a nine-minute hat-trick of tries, all
from line-out drives.

Back to a full complement of players, it was Colchester’s turn to get their maul going, Rossouw getting the final touch. Gabe Jones converted to make it 14-33 at the break.
Barnes made the game safe early in the second half through a fourth try for Humphreys and a further score for openside Rory Kassapian, but Colchester still sniffed a try bonus point.

Sure enough, either side of the hour the hosts enjoyed a purple patch.
First Tom Hoppe intercepted close to half-way to gallop in, then Fin Creighton latched on to a terrific break by Jones to go between the posts to bring up the bonus point. Jones converted all four Colchester tries.

All the replacements saw action in the second half, but with the win realistically beyond Colchester, the visitors wrapped things up with further tries by Matthews and Nicholson to underline their promotion credentials.

While admitting that Colchester’s defence was still a work in progress, Haywood was quick to emphasise the positives.
“Down the bottom of the league you can come away from games being disheartened with a scoreline like that but to score four tries against a team second in the league, who have a good defence, is unbelievable.
“Come the end of the season when it matters about those single points, they could be the difference from you staying up or going down.”

The player-of-the-match from sponsors Maguire Roofing was Luke Rokomoce, while the coach’s award, sponsored by The Lexden Crown and Amnesia Flowers, went to Will Blakemore.

Colchester are away to 10th placed Old Albanians in St Albans next Saturday (kick-off 3pm).

The Ravens’ match at Norwich fell victim to the weather, while the 3s ran a strong Sudbury 2s side close, picking up two bonus points in a 24-31 defeat to go third in their league. The 4s lost at home to league leaders Mistley 2s.