Extra A 22 v Letchworth 2s 14

The Extra A were originally due to play a league game away at Hampstead on Saturday, but with the London side's pitches deemed unplayable, we were fortunate enough to fill the void with a friendly against fellow HHMT 1 side Letchworth 2s. The weather was miserable and Letchworth's sticky 3rd pitch didn't exactly lend itself to an attractive game of Rugby.

Our hosts kicked off and we started brightly; powerful carries from inside centre James Orbart and hooker Declan Caulfield set the tone early on. The first ten minutes was littered with handling errors from both sides, fortunately for us our scrum, led by the front row trio of Prime, Caulfield and Harrison, was firmly on top. This led to some good clean ball for our terrifying scrum half, Tank, to release the outside backs. Notable inroads were made by 13 Aran Martinson (who went on a trademark run bouncing everyone out of his way, including the referee) and flanker Jamie Campbell, but our last pass wasn't quite there and so we failed to convert pressure into points. The deadlock was broken though on the 15 minute mark by Sperm; the defence were far too interested in Caulfield on the inside shoulder which allowed the fly half to show the ball, go through the gap, dummy again and score close the posts. From the re-start, Optimus defied the laws of physics to gather the ball inches from the ground as he slid forward. After some more clean lineout ball was fed to us from the towering Will Palombo, captain Slade and flanker Ben Law gave us good field position. Some Letchworth ill discipline gave us a penalty which was sent to the corner by Sperm, and the resultant lineout, cleanly taken this time by Jamie Campbell, set up a good drive from our pack. We were around 10 yards from the line when Caulfield grew impatient, peeled off and carried a couple of defenders with him as he touched down in the corner. The half ended after several phases of possession close to the Letchworth line resulted in nothing for the Blues.

We rung the changes at half time and introduced Carter, Macca and Sam Read. Macca lifted morale instantly at the beginning of the second half; after taking a delightfully weighted (hospital) pass from his back row colleague Campbell, Macca was blind sided and nailed in spectacular style. He then proceeded to pick himself up out of the mud in a cartoon-esque fashion (see photo). Letchworth fought hard back at us following this, and scored a try of their own on the 10 minute mark after several tight carries. We went straight back up the field though, and after good ground was made by Tracy and Stapleton down the blind side we moved the ball to the other side of the pitch and it eventually ended up in the arms of the big man Optimus Prime, who bulldozed his way over from short range. The following ten minutes were a continual aerial bombardment from Letchworth's replacement fly half. Fortunately Read and Tiarnan Kelly were more than equal to this, and returned the ball with interest on several occasions. We scored our fourth and final try of the day with 5 minutes to play, Sperm this time opting to give the inside pass to Caulfield who barrelled his way over for his second try, and the teams fourth of the day. Letchworth had the final say though, after a big knock on was missed in the midfield, Sperm ended up casually hacking the ball back over the line and eventually touching it down when he realised the whistle wasn't going to go. Letchworth put several phases together and eventually scored to leave the final score at 22-14. It should also be mentioned that both Slade and Harrison played for our opponents in the second half when they were short of numbers due to injury- fanks.

This was overall a decent win against a tough side, who we re-visit in the league in a few weeks time. Man of the match could have gone to anyone of our pack, as well as Tank and T particularly in the backs. It went however to mobile prop Optimus, for a fine all round performance at the set piece and in open play, and for bagging himself a try. D*ck of the day, as per usual could also have gone to anyone. Aran Martinson (wiping out the ref), Sam Read (passing to nobody), Macca (passing to nobody, getting eaten by their prop), Dec Caulfield (laughing uncontrollably at the aforementioned Macca fiasco), Jamie Campbell (chipping ahead, was actually an ok kick, but you're still a flanker), Sperm (kicking ball back over own try line (ref's fault)). However, in the first half the MORON that is Ben Harrison (prop, for those that don't know) opted to try and grubber the ball through not once, but twice. Needless to say, he was d*ck of the day.

Hertford at home next week