HARWICH and Dovercourt ran out 53-0 winners at Felixstowe in their first Eastern Counties League division two south fixture of 2016.

With a few players unavailable, they called up Rob Kemp, Rob Edgar and debutant Ben Jones.

They travelled in confident mood, after a promising display in the previous week’s Suffolk Cup defeat against higher-league Southwold.

Harwich played into a strong wind in the first half, which made goal-kicking difficult.

Felixstowe started brightly, putting their visitors under early pressure.

However, Harwich managed to gain possession and then went on the offensive.

Showing a willingness to attack from everywhere on the pitch, they moved the ball to winger Adam Palmer, running from his own 22.

Palmer fended off two would-be tacklers and then outpaced the rest of the home side’s defence to score a brilliant individual try.

From the kick-off, the ball again went wide to Palmer and he repeated his run to score another 80-metre try, for 10-0.

The Low Road side were making in-roads with some hard running from Kemp, Paul Sewell and Edgar.

And Harwich’s next try came from one of these runs by Edgar.

He drew in the last defender and made a well-timed pass to Jack Cairns, who went over to make it 15-0.

Harwich’s pace was causing Felixstowe no end of problems and they went on to score two more tries – one apiece for Kyle Hutchins and Edgar.

At the half-time break, Harwich had a 25-0 lead.

With the wind behind him, fly-half Sam Male continuously pinned Felixstowe deep in their own half.

From a line-out in the Felixstowe 22, Harwich’s forwards executed a well-worked line-out move with Kemp passing to replacement George Brunning.

With two defenders to beat, Brunning used his speed and strength and crashed over the line to score.

Male added the extra two points to make the score 32-0.

With the rain and wind increasing, Harwich lost some momentum and got pulled into a scrappy game, which suited the outclassed hosts.

However, Harwich restored order with a try from David Parkin.

He scooped up a loose ball from a retreating Felixstowe scrum to score and Male converted for 39-0.

Next it was the turn of Simon Palmer.

Not to be outdone by younger brother Adam, he scored a trademark try by going on a rampaging run through the tiring Felixstowe defence.

Male converted for 46-0.

With time running out, Edgar scored a converted try to finish the game.