Basildon 20 Harlow 27

EDF Energy Senior Vase 2nd Round

Harlow booked themselves a place in the third round of the EDF Energy Senior Vase by defeating Basildon on Saturday. With a number of players carrying injuries and with the importance of the league campaign Harlow took the opportunity to give additional first team experience to a number of younger players.  Although Harlow had a reasonable grip on the game for most of the 80 minutes they were never able to establish a safe winning margin. Some very fast players in the home side backs were a constant threat to the Harlow defence and it was only in the final quarter that the Rams looked as though they would win.

Harlow started well with a penalty by Humphries for a 3 nil lead after 6 minutes only for Basildon to hit back almost immediately with an unconverted try from their lock forward Williams. On the tenth minute Harlow replied with a good attacking run by their backs and skipper Paul Eynon joined in to take the ball out wide and crash over for the try. Humphries converted from a difficult angle and put Harlow 10 – 5 in front. Harlow continued to apply pressure and on 17 minutes fly half Humphries made a good solo break for a try close to the post, converting it for a 17 – 5 lead. In the space of 10 minutes however Basildon put themselves right back into the game with two very good tries from their winger Lauler one of the converted by their scrum half Randall, making it 17 points all at half time.

In the second half Harlow played a much tighter game and boosted their defence by bringing the experience Hans Barnard at blind side flanker. For some time Harlow had been forced to contend with the home side killing the ball at the ruck and on the 48^th minute their outside centre was sin binned for the offence. Harlow took good advantage of the extra man and kept play up in the Basildon half. Their reward came when scrum half Neil Fitzpatrick made a good blind side break for a touch down in the corner. Again Humphries was on target with the conversion. When minute later Harlow were awarded a penalty they opted to kick for goal making the score 27 – 17 in their favour but more important a two score margin. With 8 minutes to go Basildon had a penalty chance of their own and used it to cut the margin to 7 points. From the kick off Harlow took play deep into home territory and did an effective job or keeping the game tight for the closing few minutes.

Harlow now await the draw for the next round of the senior vase but next weekend Harlow are at home in the league to mid table Sudbury in what will be a critical game for both sides. A lot will depend on the Rams ability to tighten their defence against a side who have a very similar scoring pattern.

Harlow now await the draw for the next round of the senior vase but next weekend Harlow are at home in the league to mid table Sudbury in what will be a critical game for both sides. A lot will depend on the Rams ability to tighten their defence against a side who have a very similar scoring pattern.

Tries: Tries: Paul Eynon, Paul Humpries, Neil Fitzpatrick

Conversions:  Paul Humpries (3)

Penalties: Paul Humpries (2)

Team List

1 -  Rob Treamer (Sub 60 mins Mobasher Mahmood )

2 -  Stuart Wilkins
3 -  Tom Webb  
4 -  Adam Paine
5 -  Paul Eynon
6 -  Mark Bowering (Sub 55 mins Hans Barnard )
7 -  Lee Covington
8 -  Shaun Roberts

9 -  Neil Fitzpatrick

10 - Paul Humpries
11 - Russ James
12 - Sean Banks (Sub 20 mins James McFerran )

13 - Luke Bowering
14 - Daniel Visser
15 - Rob Mackie  (Sub 30 mins Charlie Woodington)

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