MHRUFC U15 v Leicester Forest

A blended Harborough team took on a strong Leicester Forest team who we had met earlier in the season away from home.

A slow start from Harborough saw an early penalty awarded to Forest which was duly converted. The first quarter was punctuated with errors as Harborough struggled with the line speed of the Forest defence. This eventually led to an error which saw Forest take advantage to extend their lead to 10 nil.

A chat under the posts saw Harborough kick off and start to pull together some phases of play. Strong set piece meant that the half backs could start to dictate play. A half break from Robert saw Harborough progress into the 22. A few phases later saw Sam feed Finlay to race over on the corner. HT Score 5v10.

The second half started in a similar fashion to the first with Harborough struggling to exit their 22. The defensive pressure was causing the confidence of last few weeks to wain. Forest took full advantage and a couple of missed tackles saw them extend their lead to 17v5.

The fight back then started, one out rugby started to check the defence with Luke getting his forwards in particular Youseff and Jack to power into the fringe defence pushing them back. A series of tap penalties saw Youseff muscle his way over the line to bring a reply score,10:17.

A couple of changes saw Will Harrison move to the wing and some defensive pressure from the backs saw Forest cough the ball up for Will to gather the ball and score with Albert converting 17v17.

Harborough still had time to win the game and a break by Albert and Ollie saw Harborough move within yards of the line. However, the play broke down and Forest were awarded a series of penalties at the breakdown which saw them march down before eventually tapping and going for the winning try. 17v24

This was a good game for the guys with 30+ players taking the field against a solid and strong Forest 18. There were a lot of positives with set pieces working well, however, in training this week we will revisit rucks and how to counter aggressive defensive pressure. A big lesson today but one we will all learn from.