Once more poor discipline and our amazing ability to concede penalties cost us the opportunity of a surprise result. Having played Harpenden several times in the past years we knew this would be a challenging fixture, and had prepared for their inevitable line speed and slick handling. Despite our prep we still began slowly and conceded a try after just 2 minutes, and again soon after - finding yourself 12-0 down after 7 minutes is a tough start. Harpenden scored again 10 minutes later, however this time the Stortford boys were right to feel aggrieved as there was a blatant offence in the breakdown leading up to the try. The injustice sparked us to life and we began to play our rugby!
On 20 mins, a line out on the Harpenden 22 was perfectly executed and the ball rapidly transferred though all of the back hands, eventually finding Calan out wide. Showing great awareness our winger stepped inside and fed the ball wide to Jacob who finished brilliantly. With Fabian knocking over the extras we were back in the game. The remainder of the half was evenly balance and neither side manage to add points, leaving the half time score 17-7.
As the second half began you could feel the Stortford confidence rising and 5 mins in Carter scrambled across the line, Fab knock over the conversion and at 17-14 it was game on. Unfortunately our discipline failed us and we conceded penalty after penalty, allowing a very strong opponent possession and field position is never going to work out well. Inevitably we shipped 31 points in the final 20 mins (most of which when we were down to 14 men due to 2 yellow cards). The final scoreline was far from representative of the match and the boys knew it. While we left the field disappointed and angry, we knew we had thrown away a potential win and we know we must do better next time.
The player of the match award went to Jacob for a strong defensive and offensive performance.