Millwall 3rd XV 31 Harlow 3rd XV 12

Friendly

Not having their own fixture this week, the 4^th team supported the 3^rd team to fulfil their fixture, A merit game against Millwall, instead of getting themselves a home fixture(this means playing 5 away games in a row).  All I can say is next time it won’t happen.  I spoke to the Millwall fixture secretary who informed me that as it was a friendly, they had released the ref to their 2nds and we did not have one, I asked why? He told me that it was a request from Harlow to make it a friendly, even he was surprised as we could have hosted their 4^th team at home.

The match got off to a great start with people becoming unavailable for a variety of reasons. The location of the pitches  adding to the general chaos of the day when it was discovered that we were playing not at Victoria park but at Hackney marshes, no one knew where these were, including their fixture secretary or the contact at the club.  We eventually left with just about enough players, the farce continued when 2 car loads of players got lost.  At this point you would think it could get no worse, one look at our scrum and they were going uncontested ( oh how we laughed), having no ref (no matter, it was a friendly) we offered to split the refereeing a half each, for the first 15 minutes the poor ref had no whistle so we relied upon him shouting louder than the rest of us, and hoping play stopped.  The saving grace for us 4^th team players was that we discovered what it was like to play in matching shirts, the trip and uncontested scrums had already put us on the back foot.  The game began slowly, Jay opened the scoring with a try following a strong series of attacks to the left corner, honesty was the key to the day, with Millwall agreeing that a try had been scored even though the ref was unsighted, Pikey making full use of the ref, informed him that the conversion was good and the extra points were ours.  Millwall only really had 2 attacks, a quick tap penalty saw Harlow caught napping and they scored in the corner, another quickly taken penalty saw them again score in the corner.  12-7 at half time, with the wind now in our faces, the tactic was going to be kick it and chase.  Millwall started to capitalise on some weak tackling, three more tries, one from the centre who ran in pretty much unopposed from the half way line, the second from the scrum half with a cheeky sidestep, the third down the left wing finding space.  We scored in the corner following a little break from the fly half, out to Mumbles, back to the inside centre who scored.  A series of injuries saw Harlow use all of their players, Pikey did his ankle,Chris (ribs I think), Barney- massive black eye.  Fitness took its toll and the Harlow pack tired in the last twenty. On a positive note, the 4^th team players who went, and the two  3^rd team players(thanks to Jay and Rhys), lost to a side we could have beaten.  The game was played in great spirit with both Millwall and Harlow being honest about any errors and the resulting outcomes for the refs(first time ever for me).

Big thanks to everyone who made up the side.

MOTM-  Difficult to choose, Barney won all his line outs and was committed in his tackling, Danny Fitz and Ramraid taking the ball into contact(I know the Millwall backs really enjoyed this), Jay for his first try(I would not have given it!:-) Ben for his support in the forwards and Chris E for coming with us in the first place and for offering to referee

COTM-Everyone involved in making this a friendly.

To view more match reports - click here