Saffron Walden 54 Harlow 19

London League Division Two North East

17th April 2010

Harlow lost heavily to a very talented Saffron Walden side on Saturday.  Despite scoring three very good tries of their own the Harlow squad had no real answer to the speed and skill of the Saffron Walden backs.

Harlow started well and within the first 4 minutes a good attacking move saw the ball travel the full length of the Harlow three quarter line for Rob Mackie, playing on the wing, to score in the corner.  Harlow managed to stay ahead for the first 15 minutes before Beswick the Saffron Walden No. 8  scored their first try which was converted by Hughes playing at number 10.  The next few minutes there was a period of cut and thrust play midfield but it was gradually becoming a clear that Harlow would have problems containing the Saffron Walden backs; a yellow card for Prindiville meant that for ten minutes they played one man short.  A second converted try a from Beswick on 23 minutes extended the lead to 12 points to five and then 2 minutes later the Saffron Walden full back Philp came into the line and cut through for an unconverted try.  On the half hour a good attacking move by the Harlow backs set up a scoring pass before Harlow skipper Scott Romaine and Dobson converted taking the score to 19 points to 12.  Saffron Walden hit back immediately from the restart with a converted try from Brown their scrum half, making the score 26 points to 12 at the interval.

Within the first 10 minutes of the second half the home side destroyed any chance of Harlow getting back into the game with further converted tries from Brown and Philp, taking their total to 40 points.  For the next 15 minutes Harlow countered well making much more use of their forwards and in particular of the rolling maul.  On 55 minutes they set up a very good maul deep in the Saffron Walden 22.  They drove forward, twice rolling the ball off to change the direction of attack before powering over the line for Scott Romaine to touch down for the try.  Dobson converted making the score 40 points to 19 in favour of saffron Walden.  Harlow defended well until the final 10 minutes when they allowed Saffron Walden to run in two easy tries under the posts to extend their lead to 54 points to 19.

This result leaves Harlow in eighth place in the league and thanks to the much better results they have achieved in the second half of the season they will stay in this division for next year.  Overall they have some good young players in the squad and their attacking game is becoming quite effective.  They do however lack of concentration in defence as was clearly exposed last Saturday.  If there to do better next season this is an area which will require a considerable amount of work.

Tries: Rob Mackie, Scott Romaine (2)

Conversions:  Micheal Dobson (2)

Penalties:

Team List

1 -  Paul Prindiville (Sin bin sub Matt Branch 20-30 mins)

2 -  Stuart Wilkins 
3 -  Danny Lane  

4 -  Kerry Palmer (Sub Darren Hawkins 55 mins)

5 -  Paul Eynon  

6 -  Scott Romaine (Captain)

7 -  Mark Bowering

8 -  Kain Claridge

9 -  Charlie Woodington

10 - Micheal Dobson

11 - Will Grimley
12 - Simon Vanbeck
13 - James McFerran

14 - Rob Mackie

15 - Francis Brown (Sub Danny Smith 45 mins)

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