Aylesford 0 Harlow 83

(14th September 2008)

RFUW South East Eastern Div 3

Perry Piles The Points On

Harlow made the 50-mile journey to Aylesford Bulls for a friendly trial match with a team that contained a mixture of seasoned players and new players playing in their first season of rugby. The game was played in quarters to allow both sides to experiment with different combinations and this format gave the coaches valuable information for selection next week as Harlow start their league campaign in earnest against Southwold. In the first quarter Harlow fielded a strong line-up and with the sun on their backs they proceeded to play outstanding running rugby. From the kick off, Gizzi took the ball up and aggressive rucking from Acraman, Lucas and Lee provided fast possession that was moved quickly left to new Harlow centre McLellan who carried strongly, from more quick ruck ball the ball then moved left again and outside-centre Conway fixed the shredded defence before giving a try-scoring pass to Perry who scored with her first touch of the ball in the match and indeed of her rugby career to date! It proved to be a taste of more to come as the Harlow backs, with Stimpson pulling the strings at fly-half, totally dominating their opposite numbers with precision, pace and clean passing. Perry was the main beneficiary of these skills and scored an outstanding 4 tries just in the first 20 minutes alone. As the match progressed and different combinations were tried the match lost some of its early shape but Harlow continued to pile on the pressure at all the contact areas and totally dominated Aylesford in defence where McLellan in particular is developing a reputation in the squad as a fierce defender and somebody to avoid in tackling practice! The tries came at regular intervals as the superior pace and running lines of the Harlow backs proved irrepressible and combined with the Harlow forwards upping the tempo in both the set-piece plays and the tackle area, Aylesford were really being put to the sword. The outstanding Stimpson racked up 4 tries, the centres McLellan and Conway scored 5 between them with fullback Millman also getting in on the try-scoring frenzy but the star of the show was Perry who finished the match with 5 tries to complete a rout win of 83-0.

Perry 5 Tries

Stimpson 4 Tries 2 Conv

Conway 3 Tries 1 Conv

McLellan 2 Tries

Millman 1 Try

Gizzi 1 Conv

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