With a lot of last minute changes to the team and a Friday night fixture and venue change the fact we managed to get a decent team together and down to Welwyn on time was due to Chris Jones and Steve Ward doing their jobs so well. Once we got to the quagmire of a pitch and the game got under way we thoroughly enjoyed our selves and came away with another good win. After a great deal of cajoling Marcus Moore was persuaded to take the Tight Head position so that we did not have to go to uncontested scrums and had a great game bullying the Welwyn front row and scoring a fine individual try. I will mention at this point that the Hooker took 6 balls against the head including a Hat Trick of 3 in succession which had the opposition Hooker berating his Props for their lack of support ! Again we did a lot of work in the early part of the game without troubling the score board and were 8 points down at half time after giving away a silly penalty which was duly taken and then missing tackles to concede a soft try. We did have some good moves but the slippery ball and the clinging mud more often than not combined to thwart our efforts with people losing their footing or knocking the ball on at the vital moment.The second half was a different story with 4 well taken tries and a great effort in defence which had really tightened up and kept the opposition out of our 22 for most of the half. Kevin Lok was one of the real bricks in the defence tackling with real venom and tenacity and until he had to go off with a shoulder injury Gordon White was putting in some very heavy hits which obviously took the toll on his body eventually. It was a good all round effort yet again from the team and dominance in the Scrum and Lineout gave us the platform to attack Welwyn from all areas of the pitch. Mike Wilkins scored what was probably the best try of the game after ignoring a 2 man overlap and also Simon Goodlad hovering at his shoulder to back himself to go for the line taking the opposing defenders with him to touch down. It's a good job he did or there was a real tongue lashing in the offing from several of his team mates. Jon Harrison marked a fine performance with yet another good try finishing off a drive for the Welwyn line by the Hitchin pack and it was great to see Matt Wainwright on the end of a cracking backs move with the ball passing along the line at speed to leave him with an easy touch down. (He will tell you it was not that simple but the work was done and he was in the right place at the right time ). A couple of conversions by Mike Wilkins made him the well deserved top scorer in the game but I gave the man of the match to Kevin Lok for his tireless efforts throughout the whole game always looking for more work to do and contributing to attack and defending in very difficult conditions. Thanks to the new 3rd team Captain Joff Lord for dropping down and giving us a hand ,we hope he can take this experience of playing with the old men of the club and use it to help him make a success of his new post !
Team Simon Elves, Gary Hawtin, Marcus Moore, Philip Elwood, Gary Wearing, Jon Harrison, Joff Lord, Simon Goodlad, Deon Marevich, Mark Turner, Gordon White, Julian Emmerson, Simeon Green, Kevin Lok, Matthew Hawtin
Subs Matt Wainwright, Thomas V Corbin, Rob Pankhurst, David King, Michael Wilkins, Dave Turner
Scores T: Jon Harrison (1), Marcus Moore (1), Matt Wainwright (1), Michael Wilkins (1)
C: Michael Wilkins (2)
Player(s) of Match 1. Kevin Lok
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