Letchworth 28 TABARD 7 –
London League 2 North
Tabard put
up a brave fight on an
extremely muddy pitch against
Letchworth on Saturday but again found
that they did not have enough cohesion
to put together the necessary scores and
in the end suffered yet another league
defeat, this time by 28 points to seven.
Letchworth
the home side started the stronger and began to put a lot of pressure on Tabard early on but the
Tabard defence held and with the Tabard
scrum looking steady against their bigger opposition it looked as though
Tabard could perform well. Then, just
as Tabard were getting into their stride Letchworth broke upfield in strength and their flanker, Sterienberg,
forced his way over for the try which stand off Donald converted. Two minutes later Letchworth scored again,
this time from
a line out, which saw their other flanker Cook over for the try with Donald
converting again to put Letchworth 14 points ahead.
Tabard’s
bad luck then struck again as second row Richard Gill had to go off with a dislocated
elbow. Despite this the next twenty
minutes of the first half belonged to Tabard.
The forwards were rucking
especially well, with second row Cameron
O’Connor having an especially good debut
game and in the three-quarters good runs from centre Mike Thomas and wing Neil
Hopcroft kept Tabard right on the Letchworth line. However, with the modern game having sound
defence it was difficult to penetrate for the try but in the end stand off Jack Reilly
burrowed his way through for a terrific try which he converted. Letchworth eventually fought back just
before the break with a penalty from Donald so the teams turned round with
Letchworth ahead by 17 points to seven.
In the
second half the mud made it difficult to keep running rugby going and for a
while the game settled down to a fairly even tussle but Letchworth
kept the scoreboard ticking over with two Donald penalties.
Then, in the mud Tabard were pushed off their ball and the strike against
the head caught the Tabard defence wrong footed and the Letchworth wing was
over to complete their scoring.
The last
ten minutes was again all Tabard with constant drives at the defence by the
Tabard forwards and incisive sniping runs from scrum half Francois Karstel but it was all to no avail and Tabard had suffered yet another defeat by 28 points
to 7.
Team: Orchard, Ashcroft, Thomas, Woodard,
Hopcroft, Reilly, Karstel, Long, Gates, Baker, Gill
(Perkins 20m), O’Connor, Montague, Matheson and Stoba.