Sam Blades leads from the front as Harborough 2nds lose but put in a great performance against ON's 2nds

Harborough seconds fielded a new look team on Saturday with a number playing their first game of the season for the team. This showed from the start when they failed to gather the kick off and Old Northamptonians stormed through to score a try.

Harborough looked to be in for a tough afternoon against a very well-drilled team but an excellent break from James Stubbs put Sam Patterson clear to touch down and level the scores. Once again Harborough failed to gather the kick off and although their defence held firm, ON’s eventually crossed the line to touch down and with the conversion took a 12-5 lead. Harborough then lost skipper Nick Airey to injury following a crunching tackle and his defensive work was always going to be missed.

A re-jigged back line saw Joel Nance move to 10 and Charley Standley to centre and the midfield continued to work well. Harborough then went back on the attack and were awarded a penalty, which Stubbs converted to bring the score back to 12-8, but ON’s struck back with 2 unconverted tries from quickly taken tap penalties. Harborough were not giving up and although the scrum was often going backwards, Stubbs was having an excellent game at 9 and number eight Lee Butler made some storming runs although he lacked support.

Harborough’s lineout was performing well and as they made their way up field they dominated the final 10 minutes of the first half and after a series of forward drives should have pulled a try back only for the final pass to go astray with the line begging. With the half-time score 22-8 Harborough were still very much in the game but once again they started slowly and allowed ONs to score 2 tries within 3 minutes of the restart and with one conversion they were suddenly 34-8 down.

To their credit Harborough then upped their game with some excellent performances from a number of players, none more so than Sam Blades who stood firm at prop and was excellent in the loose, even managing to keep his cool with some strange decisions by the referee. Harborough then scored what was arguably the try of the game from a simple move with excellent execution. A tap down by Butler from the line out to Stubbs was fed to Nance and a miss pass to Patterson allowed him to use his pace to burst through the defence to bring the score back to 22-13. This soon became 34-18 when the ever-alert Stubbs took a quick tap penalty and carved his way through the retreating defence to touch down. (This week his legs did not let him down)

Harborough were struggling to contain the ON’s support play and on the hour ON’s crossed the line for a further score to extend the lead to 39-18 and although Harborough then held firm they were outdone with the final play of the match when ON’s backs and forwards combined to outnumber the Harborough defence to touch down under the posts for a try that with the conversion bought the final score to 46-18. Although defeated Harborough can take much credit from their performance as individuals and as a team against opposition who play at a much higher level.