Harlow 23 Brentwood 23

London Three North East

A touchline conversion by skipper Nick Ford earned Harlow a hard fought draw in the last minute of this game at Ram Gorse. Harlow’s efforts to top the table faltered as the two top teams, Westcliff and Diss both recorded wins.

In a match when the Rams never seemed to achieve any consistency, Brentwood’s pack muscled the Harlow boys in the loose and spoilt the home side’s line outs, usually a feature of Harlow’s game plan. It was another poor start for Ford’s team  as the fly half’s kick was charged down and Brentwood were gifted a try under the posts.

Harlow responded with a spell in Brentwood’s twenty two but the visitors went further ahead with a penalty after 18 minutes having missed one a few minutes before.

AS Harlow began to press forward Brentwood killed the ball and ford kicked two penalties to close the gap but the Brentwood fly half Whitehead also slotted another three points to allow the visitors to go into the interval 13-6 ahead.

 As Harlow pressed forward again in the second half they lost possession and inside centre Ben Abbott made a powerful run through the middle evading despairing tackles to score and with Whitehead’s conversion the Rams found themselves trailing by 20 points to 6 but two further penalty attempts were pushed wide by the Brentwood kicker.

Romaine was replaced at wing forward by Jamie Pope and Gary Brown came on at prop for  Prindiville after fifteen minutes. This brought fresh life to the Harlow team and within five minutes following a 5 metre line out Eynon caught the ball cleanly, the maul rolled towards the Brentwood line and Pope pealed off to score. Ford pulled off a great conversion form near the touch line and Harlow were back in with a chance.

With fifteen minutes left Harlow forced another penalty in front of the posts and Ford added three points to make the score 16-20 but Harlow’s hopes were again dashed when the visitors put over a difficult penalty kick from the right hand side.

Simon Vanbeck then replaced Sean Banks on the wing with thirteen minutes left and Harlow spent the rest of the match  attacking Brentwood’s twenty two but the forwards couldn’t force their way over the line. With two minutes left they mauled their way through the middle and pulled in the Brentwood defenders. The ball was spun wide and Vanbeck brushed aside the winger’s challenge to cross the line and score. Ford put over a difficult conversion with the last kick of the game much to the relief of the Harlow supporters.

Tries: Jamie Pope, Simon Vanbeck

Conversions: Nick Ford (2)

Penalties: Nick Ford (3)

1. - James Ephgrave

2. - Stuart Wilkins

3. - Paul Prindiville (Sub Gary Brown 55 mins)

4. - Lloyd Matchett

5. - Paul Eynon

6. - Scott Romaine (Sub Jamie Pope 55 mins )

7. - Mark Pickett

8. - Kain Claridge

9. - Lee Harron

10. - Nick Ford

11. - Will Grimley

12. - Billy Stanley

13. - Josh Bohl

14. - Sean Banks (Sub Simon Vanbeck 60 mins )

15. - James McFerran

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