Harlow 4th XV 19 Braintree Vets XV 0

Friendly Saturday 31^st January 2009

As the 4^th team arrived at the club it became apparent that the difficulties in fielding 4 sides on the same weekend were again going to arise.  The seconds were taking players from the 3rds and the 3rds were borrowing (as arranged) some 4^th team players.  Perhaps this is something best sorted on Thursday evening as opposed to Saturday lunchtime.

The middle pitch had not been marked out and as we were the only team playing a friendly this is the one we used (put some cones out etc ) made Harlow appear completely inept as a club but hey, they hadn’t seen the showers.

Braintree kicked off as we played downhill with the wind behind us.  They had quite a large pack and some even larger backs, the game settled straight into the usual 4^th team set up, scrums, lots of them.  From the first scrum we pushed them off the ball, the new hooker settling back into the Harlow front row like a home from home.  Harlow won all of their own put in, and took several against the head, the ref had informed us that we could only push 1 ½ metres which was interesting, but enough for the pack to do its job. The Braintree backs were up quickly on their opposite numbers which meant that the ball won by the forwards had to be recycled several times before we scored.  Dangler Dan punched straight through the middle of the Braintree defence, completely ignored Swampys desperate cries for the ball and set the ball up nicely when tackled. A Braintree infringement gave us a tap penalty close to the line, Danny Fitz set off with his usual zeal but was held up, Swampy had a go and was held up millimetres from the line, it was left to Gaggy to pick up and dive over the line.  Crabby slotted the conversion giving us a 7-0 lead.  The high winds were making the line out a bit of a lottery, both sides struggling to hit their jumpers although we were better at it than Braintree.  Harlow had several opportunities to score, there were a few forward passes which stopped the move at the last minute.  Swampy scored next, Barney apparently was playing with the ball unsure of whether he should pick and go or not, Swampy picked it up, and unstoppable from close range he went over to add another 5 points(he is still reminding everyone of the tackle he put in on James last week, knocking him back 5 metres and leaving him in a crumpled pile).  Prior to Swampy scoring there was a bit of nifty footwork on his part, he “accidentally” stood on me, nasty man!  He is telling everyone I gave him a shoeing in return but that is just not true!!!

Crabby converted and we were 14-0 up, several people were playing well, Mex at blind side, Barney and Ben at second row were helping to dominate the scrum nicely.  Hammer had nearly scored going at pace down his wing only to be tackled a foot from the line.  Aunty was doing his normal job of tackling anything that moved and stealing the ball in the maul.

The second half saw more of the same, Braintree were finding the odd gap and our defence was tested on several occasions, a few changes to the team saw Neil come on to replace Mex who it transpired had broken his thumb 10 minutes into the game but played on anyway.  John Stock came on to replace Danny.  The Braintree scrum lost their prop and replaced him, in sporting fashion John offered to take it easy on him to keep the game going.  The whole game was played like this, there was no repeat of the last weeks handbags, hard but fair would be an accurate description. Hammer Harrison was out on his usual wing, he gave a bit of a lesson on how to tackle, the first he wrapped the bloke up while reinforcements arrived, the next two were great from a low stance he just knocked his opposite number flat. The second of these stopped the player having a free run down the wing to score. The only score in the second half was set up when Gaggy broke down the blind side, beating 2 defenders, he passed it inside to Mumbles who had to check before he sensibly scored(no ballet style diving).  This was not converted leaving the score at 19-0.  Ramraid came on to replace Aunty for the last 20 minutes, as usual the opposition looked overjoyed to see him.  There had again been several passages of play which nearly resulted in a score, there was great support especially from Ben and Barney.  Swampy delivered another of his dump tackles, driving his opponent back and leaving him looking like an upturned crab gasping for breath.

MOTM-Hammer Harrison and Mex, both had great games.  Dangler Dan, who is settling back in nicely.

COTM- Mumbles for his awesome kicking. Pete for being well enough to go shopping but not well enough to play.  Doreen if he ever is allowed out to play.

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