Chess Valley - Welwyn - Hitchin

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Good performances on a cold, misty morning.

Hitchin 0 – 5 Welwyn

This was a most encouraging performance against a good Welwyn team. Everyone played their part in an aggressive display that took the very large opposition scrum by surprise. We dominated territory in the first half and Jakob and Michael both came close to scoring. Welwyn’s defence held firm though and as half time approached their greater muscle gave them the chance to attack our line. A major improvement from the last couple of weeks, our tackling was equally as aggressive and we turned round all square.
Michael needed to rest a sore wrist which meant our largest player was substituted by our smallest! We therefore tried to keep the ball away from Welwyn’s powerful pack, a tactic that had some success as we managed to play a fair share of the second half in their part of the field. Unfortunately, as we feared, their pack eventually wore us down and they crashed over after some sustained mauling. We didn’t give up and ended the game pressing their line but just ran out of time.

Hitchin 18 – 7 Chess Valley.
( T: Michael Trever, Henry Walsh (2) C: Adam Ross )

We continued our good form against Chess Valley and dominated much of the match. Michael had recovered and scored first dragging several opposition players over the line with him. Several times we were repulsed by clearance kicks from their line and twice had 5m scrums after touch-downs, but couldn’t quite add to our score, reaching half time 5-0 ahead.
The second half continued in much the same vein as we pressed hard and Chess Valley defended gallantly. Strong running from Michael, William and Bryony sapped their strength and Henry showed what a good attacker he can be with two good tries. Chess pulled one back after a good mazey run finally breached ou defence but the result was never in doubt.

An excellent team performance with many candidates for Player of the Week, but the prize goes to William Hurry for an impressively aggressive forward display.

Report from last week's triangular against Milton Keynes and Datchworth:

Hitchin 0 – 19 Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes have a squad of just 13 players and injury and illness allowed only 11 to turn up. Jacob helped them win their first game and one of Datchworth’s players made up the numbers against us. The plus side to having a small squad is that everyone knows exactly what their role is and they play a fast committed style with good communication. This was evident from the start as they made good progress down the right. Harry made an excellent tackle from the ensuing scrum but was too close to the line to prevent the score.
We settled after this, George and Euan making good tackles and penetrating deep into their half and Adrian was like a limpet refusing to let the ball emerge from mauls. Unfortunately a couple of missed tackles let them in again and we turned round 12 points down.
In the second half we exerted more pressure but just couldn’t make the break-through. Euan almost broke free a couple of times and George and Henry also ran strongly. MK were always a threat and Harry was forced to make more try-saving tackles in his unusual position as full back. The final score was the last move of the match, a breakout from yet another maul.

Hitchin 0 – 26 Datchworth

This was a rather different Datchworth side than we faced earlier in the season and they revelled in the firm conditions and the space afforded by a full-sized pitch. We lacked poundage and presence with several of our usual forwards on the sickbed. We rarely managed to get our hands on the ball, although we looked fluent when putting Euan and Jacob through for strong runs on the wings. Missed tackled allowed Datchworth to score more easily than they should have, although their third try was from a very special individual effort from their full back which would have eluded just about anyone.
The second half was much tighter but we still didn’t get enough ball to work with. Adrian was again in the thick of the action but even he couldn’t prevent the final score from a maul driven over the line.

A tough morning for us, and slightly disappointing that we weren’t able to score, but I can’t fault the effort everyone put in. We have another tough match next weekend against Welwyn and hopefully our missing forwards will have recovered from their ailments to provide much needed drive and ballast!

Player of the week: Euan Dixon-Earle