Harlow ground out a vital win in their league encounter with Braintree on Saturday. A combination of a wet ground surface and a heavy the Braintree pack who played with a determination to kill ball when possible ruled out any chance off exciting running rugby. Perhaps the best aspect of the game from Harlow point of view was that their defensive line was very reliable and attacking moves by the home side were very quickly shut down by effective tackling. Fly half Nick Ford kicked Harlow into an early lead and although a lot of the game was played mid field Braintree never looked like taking the points.

Immediately from the kick-off Harlow took play up to the Braintree 10 metre line and forced a penalty when a home player killed ball. Nick Ford immediately slotted the kick to give Harlow a three-point lead. From the restart Harlow caught Braintree in possession and established themselves in their half. When Braintree did get ball they kicked up field into the Harlow half a tactic they would use throughout the game and one which simply gave away possession allowing Harlow to counter-attack through their backs. After 10 minutes Harlow slotted a further penalty taking a lead to six nil. As the pattern of forward play in emerged Harlow had the edge in the line-out with good jumping particularly from Jon Snow and also were able to take advantage of many of the rucks situations because their pack while lighter tended to be quicker to the break down. In the set scrums however the heavy Braintree pack were able to push the Harlow forwards back and frequently to wheel them meaning that even on their own ball Harron was having to launch his backs while back-pedalling creating static situations which provided little hope a break through. Harlow had to weather a 10 minute period with a man short after Mark Pickett was yellow-carded for persistently coming into the rucks from the side. During this period Braintree exploited the opportunity spinning the ball out from a rolling maul and running in a try in the corner making the score 6 - 5 in favour of Harlow. Towards the end of the half an ankle injury to centre Josh Bohl forced Harlow to bring on Sean Banks on the wing and to rearrange their backs with Vanbeck moving into the centre. The rearrangement seemed to work quite well and Harlow went into the interval holding onto their one-point lead.

Harlow started the second half strongly with a good kicking for position by Nick Ford keeping play up in the home side half After 10 minutes they manage to establish a rolling maul inside the Braintree 22 and this allowed on to Harron to spin out a quick pass to Banks on the wing who ran in for a try in corner taking the score to 5 points to 11 in favour of Harlow. A tactical substitutions brought on at James Ephgrave into the Harlow front row, replacing Paul Prendeville. On a number of occasions Harron was able to get a ball out to his backs making good ground but just unable to get clear. The pace of both Simon Vanbeck and Matt Howard forced the home side to defend very strongly. Midway through the half the Braintree number 8 was yellow-carded for persistently killing the ball at the ruck and Harlow took advantage of penalty to take play well up field. A further offence but few minutes later saw the Braintree loose head prop join his colleague in the sin bin. Harlow exploited the advantage very well moving the ball out to Vanbeck who made a very good 30 yard run committing the Braintree full-back before passing to outside centre Ben Jarvis to cut in for the second Harlow try. Kicking from the wing Ford was online with the conversion attempt but just short. Harlow however now had a 16 – 5 lead and a firm grip on the game. Despite maintaining good attacking pressure a lot of the play still took place between forwards in midfield. With about five minutes to go Harlow stole Braintree ball deep in their own half and Simon Vanbeck used his pace to take play well down into the Braintree half before feeding out to Matt Howard on wing. Howard sprinted towards the line chipping the ball over the final Braintree defender only to be taken out by an extremely cynical late tackle. The referee brought out his yellow card immediately to send off the Braintree winger. Harlow kicked for the corner and established themselves in the Braintree 22 do where they were still attacking at the final whistle. While perhaps the offence had been slightly too far from the try line for the ref. to award the penalty try Harlow supporters felt that the offence had in fact caused them to lose are virtually certain score.

Bottom-of-the-table Hadleigh have withdrawn from the league and all of their results have therefore been deleted by the RFU and the league table recalculated as an 11 team competition. The result this is that Bury St Edmunds go back to first place with Harlow second on points difference. From Harlow point of view they lose the advantage gained when Hadleigh had held Bury to a draw and also the massive points difference they achieved in their 91 point to 8 win over Hadleigh. For Harlow to win the league they need to win all their remaining games and also for Bury to drop at least one. There was however some compensating good news for Harlow at when Romford one of the other main challengers for the league title went down to 5th place Rochford by it 23 points to 22 opening up the gap between Harlow and Bury St Edmunds and the rest of the chasing group. This Saturday Harlow are at home to Rochford, kicking off at 2.30. Another critical challenge in their promotion race.