Letchworth Festival

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Weeks' of practice pay dividends......

Match reports courtesy of Jill:

Game 1 - Hitchin 7 Letchworth 1The "six tag turnover rule" really benefited the team in this game as the score suggests, the team were excellent defensively. Some great passing between Alfie and David resulted in the first try of the new season for David. The team won another turn over and Jordan was well placed to score our second. Letchworth looked like they were going to get a try back, but great defending from Harry L and Alex followed by some fantastic accurate passing resulted in Elliot putting us 3 ahead at half time. A strong run to the try line by Harry L saw him score the first of his hatrick in this game. His second followed after some noticeably good defending from Ben and Sam, and his third was again the result of some strong running through the Letchworth defenders. Letchworth then scored but with the last play of the game, Alex side stepped his way through to make it 7 in all for Hitchin.

Game 2 - Hitchin 4 Stevenage 2Stevenage started well but failed to make anything from a few errors from our boys. They went ahead but Harry D who had recovered from his sore knee tumbled across the line for an equaliser. Great all round support play enabled Elliot to score our second and put us ahead. From the re start after half time, Alfie wrong footed some of the Stevenage players and found a gap to run through and score. This game saw both teams loosing possession with the six tag rule, however it was Hitchin that made the most of this and with a few seconds to go, Alfie skirted through again , leaving three Stevenage players sitting on the floor to make it 4 tries for Hitchin.

Game 3 - Hitchin 3 Royston 4I am sorry but I missed the start of this but was reliably informed that we began well against a very well organised Royston team. Elliot scored our first after some excellent support play from Jonathan and Harry D. Royston squeezed past our team to grab an equaliser but tries went with play with David charging through for our second. Royston held us well and we struggled to make ground with the six tag rule, but on the final tag of that play, Sam found a space through and levelled things at 3 all. Unfortunately, the time wasn't on our side and Royston scored again almost immediately from the restart and with no time left, we just lost out.

Game 4 - Hitchin 6 Datchworth 7
This was thrilling stuff from the start and a dropped ball from Datchworth right on our try line was brilliantly picked up by Alex who then ran the full length of the pitch for our first try. As Harry D went off briefly he was replaced by Elliot who made a massive impression by passing quickly to Alfie who stormed through to score . Harry D came back on and passed the ball out to Alfie again who, reliable as ever found a gap in their defence and scored to make things three all at half time. At the re start, Sam ran almost to the try line before being tagged but managed to pass quickly to Elliot who put us ahead albeit briefly. Datchworth scored twice more but a marvellous individual try from Elliot levelled thing again. Again Datchworth went ahead, but all round great team play enabled Sam to score again. Despite this valiant effort, Datchworth just pinched this from us with the last play. A great game and great team play from both teams.

Try scorers
David - 2
Elliot - 5
Alfie - 4
Harry D - 1
Harry L - 3
Sam - 2
Alex - 2

'Coach's Conclusion'
Well done everyone; a strong performance where each of you contributed your part - thank you.

If you remember last year, at the Barnet festival, we lost each of our 4 games; so to win 2 today in our first matches of the season makes me very proud.

The positives today were the running into space; the excellent sidesteps (by everyone); the 'Defence' line and the continual communication.

This led to excellent early wins - well done.

We played well in our final two games and were a little unlucky and perhaps a bit tired.

To turn these close losses into wins we must

Improve our support play
Always run forward when we have the ball
Pass quickly after we are tagged, and
Make sure we get the 'Tags' when we are defending
Also I must remind everyone it is important we LISTEN and FOCUS ON WHAT I ASK YOU TO DO
Well done and see you next Sunday.

Eric

Please see Gallery for photos of the Team and also the Player of the week (Harry Lanyon for his excellent tries in the first game). Mark also took some excellent photos which I am also planning on listing. Please see update for games on Sunday. We are planning one team at Milton Keynes and one at Harpenden. Please email me your availability for Sunday as we need to confirm numbers.
Thanks
Simon