Clash of the Titans

A beautiful clear autumn morning. Sun shining and ground good and soft from the previous days’ rain. Second round of the County Cup featuring last year’s two finallists. This was always likely to be a keenly contested encounter, and it did not disappoint.

Both sides displayed the inevitable tension in the early exchanges. Leicester Forest had most of the possession and pinned Harborough back in their own half. Harborough were forced into a number of handling errors and the penalty count against them kept the pressure on. Powerful defence denied the visitors any score from all their work and the tide began to turn.

Harborough’s forwards began to take the game to their opposition. Huw Davies and Henry Povoas made driving runs to commit the defence and Povoas offloaded for Ed Duggan to sprint over for the first score. Will Hallam hit the conversion from the touchline, to help settle the nerves.

Forest came back though, and Harborough lost the ball in a ruck and saw it cross the field to the hands of the flying winger. Despite some valiant chasing he was not to be caught. Having been forced out wide for the score, the conversion was always going to be difficult. Harborough hung on for a 7 – 5 lead.

This did seem to spark a bit more urgency and Will Nijjer really made his presence felt. Winning turnover ball at a ruck he ran hard and straight for the line, giving a half time score of 12 – 5.

This game was far from over. Forest harried, tackled and rucked from start to finish and Harborough had very little time on the ball. Mathew Stamp made a nuisance of himself at scrum half, taking sniping runs and tackling hard. Ross Primrose and Sam Pindling were also working hard in defence, but Harborough were finding it difficult to get any consistent forward momentum.

Spencer Derry made some good breaks down his wing, but the Forest defence was a very tough nut to crack. It looked like the game might be won when Ed Duggan crossed for another score, this time from a quick tapped penalty. But Forest had other ideas. Once again showing their commitment, they picked up loose ball from Harborough and scored under the posts. A straightforward conversion brought the score to 17 – 12 and we were in for a nailbiting finale.

Harborough had the slight upper hand and just about managed to pin Forest back. Good rucking, quick ball and soft hands saw Duggan over in the corner for his hat-trick. The final score of 22 – 12 made victory certain, but the players’ roar at the final whistle was from a mixture of jubilation and relief.