Hertford Exiles 2nd XV 5 Harlow 2nd XV 38

Friendly

To read Hertford's account of the same game - Click here

When these two teams met 6 months back Harlow could barley get into Hertford’s half, But Harlow have been much improved since then and a good win was needed to get over there loss in the Cup final 2 weeks ago.

With a much changed team and no recognised jumpers in the line out it looked a fairly daunting task for Harlow but with Jamie pope drafted in at the last minute, he joined Ricky McKinley and Ross Delgreco in the back row and they were awesome.

Harlow started with the wind in there face and after some sustained pressure won a penalty which was put into the corner and from a well worked lineout a typical Harlow maul got close to the line and resulted in Tommy Johnson getting over the line for an early lead, Dunn converted. For the next 20 minutes it was a real scrap both side trying the best to get the ball wide but again great defence from the Harlow back row thwarted Hertford’s efforts and when they turned Hertford over in mid field some great interplay between Johnson, Pope and McKinley resulted in Johnson feeding Chris Ball who dragged 3 players over the line with him Dunn missed the conversion Half time 0 – 12

The second half saw Harlow not letting up and with Vanston leading the way in the backs with some inch perfect kicking it put Harlow in scoring position again a well worked backs move from the line out saw Ally Phillips put clear with only the full back to beat which he convincingly did Dunn converted.

Hertford fought back well with the big pack putting Harlow on the back foot for long periods but strong tackling from Rundall and Jake Kent- pope in the centres stopped there young backs from progressing towards Harlow’s line.

Again turnover ball from Pope saw some superb passing between backs and forwards saw Ball following up play well crashing over from 5 metres out again taking players with him. Conversion missed.

Pope was then sin binned for taking a player out at a ruck illegally which meant that Harlow might start to feel the pressure, but instead they upped there efforts and again a well worked scrum and good hands from the back saw Phillips put through a gap he cut inside two defenders and scored in the corner, Con missed

With Harlow trying to attack at every opportunity now they made a mistake and Hertford’s no11 beat three defenders to score in the corner    5 – 31

With Harlow now wanting to end the game on a high note and with Pope back on the pitch they attacked from there own line again good interplay between backs and forwards saw Captain McKinley in space and he obliged with a score refusing to pass to Pope who had run the whole pitch in support!

With Dunn off injured Tommy Johnson slotted the conversion over for the last kick of the game.

Thoroughly enjoyable game through out with a team that apart from a couple of old heads had an average age of about 21.

Tries.  Johnson, Ball 2, Phillips 2, McKinley

Cons   Dunn 3, Johnson

To read Hertford's account of the same game - Click here

To view more match reports - click here

No pictures this week