A gap in the wet weather saw an exciting game develop in bright sunny conditions at Mildenhall.
The Bulls began well with a fine passage of support play. Progress upfield ended when a gap finally appeared for Shaun Mundy to burst through and score. For the rest of the first half however, Mildenhall had the upper hand.
The hosts’ centres were breaching the tackle line frequently and it was to the credit of Ives last ditch defence, in particular by Nathan Wilkins out wide, that Mildenhall only managed two tries.
Sharing a penalty apiece, the half finished 17-8 to the home side.
The second half was a totally different affair. It was Mildenhall that started the better, scoring soon after the kick off after some excellent handling.
Having sorted their structure out at the break, Matt Millar began to pull the strings at stand-off. His superb break from his own half ended with Wilkins scoring in the corner.
Ives were beginning to dominate the set pieces with Sam Marjason-Stamp marshalling the line out for Ollie Mills and Gabriel Fraser to control. In the scrums, the Bulls were fortified by the returning Dave Sharp and shunted their opponents back.
From one lineout, Millar delayed a pass to put a rampaging Mundy through for his second, putting Ives back in the lead after an hours play.
Mildenhall retook the lead immediately from the kick off when errors at the back gifted them a soft try.
Ives stuck to their patient build up play and with the hosts tiring and suffering a couple of injuries, the game swung decisively in the visitors’ favour.
Man-of-the-match Millar got his own name on the scoresheet with a good break. The good continuity with ball in hand then led to tries for Luke De’Ath and Declan O’Neill (2) and Mark Pickering completing six successful kick attempts.
Mildenhall managed a consolation score at the end, but recognised they had been well beaten in the second half after a fine display by Ives.