Harlow 0 Thurrock 40

London League Division Two North East

12th December 2009

The league games played last Saturday completed the first half of the league program for this season. All the clubs have now played each other once and we can start to consider the possible outcome of the return fixtures. Harlow met league leaders Thurrock last weekend who are storming away at the top of the table. They are now five points clear of the next club and their average winning margin over all matches is 30 points. With a below full strength side Harlow can in some ways be satisfied with the outcome. Their forwards worked hard throughout but they were up against an exceptional set of backs who outclassed them in both speed over the ground and with the speed which they distributed possession. Of their 8 tries three came from winger Nathan Farrell and five from fullback Daryl Worster.

Within the first ten minutes Farrell had put in two tries for a ten point lead before Harlow had any chance to pose a threat. A break by Dobson saw him stopped within 10 metres of the line and two good attacks using the rolling maul came close but  were kept out and cleared by the visitors. For much of the time Harlow were forced to defend and another Farrell try and the first of Worster’s collection made it 20 – 0 to the visitors at half time.

Harlow might have hoped to do better with the slope in their favour in the second half but a hat-trick of tries from Worster in the first eleven minutes of the half put paid to any hopes of a recovery. Harlow brought on James Clark and Seamus O’Brian to replace Vanbeck and Luke Bowering but an injury to O’Brian after 10 minutes meant that they had to bring on their Matt Branch a front row replacement. Prindiville took over as hooker and Romaine moved to the flanked allowing them to cover the gap in the three quarters. Harlow defended well despite this only conceding one more try to Worster on 72 minutes for a final scoreline of 0 – 40.

Harlow in 11th place of 12 sides start the second half of their league programme at home to Enfield Ignatians this Saturday. The fixture list has worked out such that in the next two months they meet all the other sides in the bottom half of the table. It means that if they are to get out of the relegation zone they must take points from these sides and it all happens between now and the 20th of February. They beat Ignatians away at the start of the season and up to a few weeks back would have considered this a winnable game, particularly with home advantage. In recent weeks however the Enfield side have turned things around with some good results so it will need a real commitment for the Rams in the key game.