Hampstead 3 TABARD 27 – London League 2 North West

Steve Jenkins, playing at fullback, marked his debut for Tabard with two well taken tries on Saturday as Tabard beat Hampstead by 27 points to three.

Although the game did not appear to be as hard as Tabard expected, they owed their victory to a good performance in the set scrums where the Lake twins, Bill and Wilf put in a powerful performance and also to some tenacious tackling, especially by stand off Jack Reilly, which effectively stifled out the powerful Hampstead backs.

Tabard opened the scoring after just six minutes. Early pressure gave them a scrum near the Hampstead line. Number 8, Scott Stoba, picked up at the base of the scrum and made a surge towards the line and, although he was stopped short, he got passed out to wing Matty Roberts, coming up at pace, for the try. Tabard then had a good period without reward until midway through the half Jenkins got his first try. Tabard won good scrummage ball and centre Joe Cunningham burst through but was brought down, Tabard re-cycled the ball rapidly and Jenkins came into the line to burst through and score the try which Reilly converted.

Just on half time Jenkins scored again. This time Tabard were caught wrong footed as Hampstead ran the ball out of defence and looked like scoring but the final pass was fumbled under pressure and Jenkins gathered the ball to run in the try under the posts giving Reilly an easy conversion.

The second half got off to a good start for Tabard when, from re-cycled ball, centre Gerald Arasa scythed his way through the defence before feeding scrum half Andy Murphy for the try which Reilly converted. The game then settled into a steady affair with Hampstead putting in some good attacks but being prevented from getting the vital scores by some resolute defence from Tabard. Pressure brings points however and Hampstead’s stand off, Farrel, converted a penalty mid way through the half to put his team on the scoreboard but it was their only score and Reilly added to Tabard’s total with a penalty in the closing minutes of the game to bring up the final score of 27 points to three.

Team: Jenkins, Murphy K, Arasa, Cunningham, Roberts, Reilly, Murphy A, Lake (Bill), Colette, Lake (Wilf), O’Connor, Barrow, Hall, Settle, Stoba.

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