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Harlow 4th XV 36
Cambridge Exiles 10
Cup
After last weeks
cancellation we rescheduled the cup match for this weekend.
Cambridge made the trip
down arriving with a bare 15.
With players returning from injury after Xmas,
numbers were up and we were raring to go.
A quick shirt change as we both played in red,
saw the green and white shirts mixed in with some old shirts take to the
field.
From the kick off,
Harlow set off
down hill.
Swampy needed no encouragement to put the first
of many of his crunching tackles in.
The ball was spun out to the wing and Rob Spinks
crashed over to score, a great start.
Cambridge
were quite big, but no match for our pack, from the first we pushed them off
the ball and let them know what they were in for.
Justin our scrum half was unstoppable from close
range after a maul put us close to the try line and he crashed over to make
it 10-0, unable to convert either score.
For some unknown reason we then went to sleep
for a while,
Cambridge
came back at us after a series of penalties and scored out wide after
creating the overlap.
This woke us up and Mark the fireman was not
stopping as he scored after we tore through the defence.
Cambridge
scored again when we were caught napping, they would not give up. Cambridge
had one big player who they used constantly to bash it up the middle, after
a while he was getting knocked over very quickly.
Carl scored the next his pace making sure of the
try in the corner.
The second half saw John the Hammer and Barney
disappear over to Cambridge(not
quite sure what you call a pair of Judases, suggestions please?).
This meant that the game could continue 15 a
side. Going
uphill in the second half and fitness starting to become a factor our scrum
was in its element, mauls began to eat up the yards as they ploughed up the
pitch.
Mark the fireman scored his second as he looped around
Freddy to take the ball and score in the corner, the ball came from the
scrum half through the backs all the way to the wing.
After a particularly devastating maul which took
us from the 22 to the half way line, Justin and Freddy saw space and broke
up the blind side, unfortunately Justin didn’t know he had Freddy with him
and Freddy did not call for it. A last ditch tackle saw the full back tackle
Justin.
The last score saw Swampy running in support go down
the wing and score right under the posts, not sure there were many people
who by then could have run that far, that fast. All you could see on a very
muddy, Swampy, face was a big cheesy grin.
Cambridge
played hard right to the end and the game was good fun, I’m not sure that
anyone would have beaten us after 3 weeks of no games, just too much excess
energy.
A few chats were had both on the touchline and in the
bar afterwards, Cambridge
had a few players missing and there usual front row is the same size as
ours!!!! Their big No. 8 usually plays prop and they normally do to the
opposition what we did to them. If Chingford win their game, then our next
game on the 21st
February will be against them at home.
We will be looking to avenge the 44-0 defeat
from our last meeting when we only had 13 players.
Apart from a slight wobble in the first half we
are back on track, mouths firmly shut letting the rugby do the talking for
us.
Comedy moments were few and far between, although when
we gave Judas Hammer to Cambridge he promptly stopped us scoring with a try
saving tackle and then in a moment of brilliance he dump tackled Mumbles
(like a graceful ballerina Steve went up and up and the accelerated face
first into the mud, its probably karma for diving when you score) a joy to
watch.
Barney got the ball when attacking us in our 22(not
sure why he was playing outside centre), he could see me waiting to tackle
him but not Chris Powell who hit him like a bulldozer, unfortunately the
pair of them then hit me like a ton of bricks, I think I have whiplash.
MOTM-Barney for an
awesome performance for both teams, the entire pack who gave us all the ball
we could ask for. Justin for his blindside break.
COTM-Despite repeated warnings Freddy plays his own
game with its own laws,
Offside not being one of them.
One more infringement and a 10 minute rest was
coming Freddy’s way.
Scorers
Rob,Mark2,Justin,Carl,Swampy
Conversions
Carl2?Mumbles1(from in front of the posts and to stop you sulking)
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