Fakenham 19 : 10 Diss Saracens - 25th March 2017

Diss Saracens travelled to Fakenham 1st XV for their last league game of the season, this being Diss Saracens ultimate last challenge as it was against the league leaders. Diss came into the last fixture in 2nd place trailing by 5 points, but well behind on points difference. Diss Saracens were up against it and as standard throughout the season coming with a side that had not all played together before. Diss had John Bergin from the 1st team playing at No.8, Jon Trede's debut game of the season on the wing and Will Waddingham from Diss 1st XV on the flank. The positive coming into this fixture was that the prior fixture played against Fakenham at Mackenders only lasted 65 minutes and Diss came away winners, due to the referee getting knocked out.

This last game of the season was highly competitive and quite brutal at times with a lot of physical exchanges with ball in hand throughout the game. It was an impressive game to watch with 3 yellow cards, 39 points scored and the top two teams in the league fighting for dominance.

Diss winning the toss, the game started with Diss receiving the ball and Fakenham kicking off and facing the sun. Fakenham were first to score through some good attacking lines and also some poor defence from Diss, the conversion was missed. This was a wake up call and 25 minutes in Diss were creating havoc with running through Fakenham's defence but after 6-8 times of open play stopping for small infringements where Diss managed to hold possession, Diss couldn't come away with any points. Diss however carried on with piling the pressure on Fakenham which resulted in a couple of penalties, which after two attempts Adam Goymour - Diss Captain opted to kick for posts and added 3 points onto the board. Diss now trailing 5-3, it was sure to be a tight game and Diss were under pressure to perform as Fakenham were certainly up for this game. After some solid defence Diss denied Fakenham from scoring and turned away with Matt Trede running from inside DIss's 22 to score an almost length of the field try, which Adam Goymour converted to make the score 10-5 to Diss at half-time.

The second half was all DIss's pressure and with Henry Passmore, Freddie Cornish and Joe Kindleysides all able subs to come on and provide fresh legs to a tiring Diss side having not played a fixture for a couple of weeks. Throughout the second half, there were numerous scraps after infringements resulting in possession swaying towards Fakenham and Jacob Page being sin binned for being off his feet with ball in hand which did not help the cause. This resulted in Fakenham coming away with an converted score making it 12-10. After this, Diss found it hard to get back into the game and Fakenham came away with another score and conversion to make it 19-10. This was to be the final result and whilst a disappointing result, Diss Saracens can hold their heads up high after a solid season, despite challenges with availability and lack of training to put themselves in a position to be promoted due to the Essex sides coming out of the Eastern Counties league.