MH U14s vs Leamington

With 5 players withdrawing due to illness at late notice, it was a rather depleted squad who faced Leamington. As a result, some players found themselves trying out some new positions. Leamington also had a number of injuries and illnesses and arrived with just 16 players.

Having never played Leamington before, the team had no idea what to expect from the opposition. The best policy in this situation is to go on the attack and Harborough started very brightly and soon had Leamington under pressure in their own 22. Leamington managed to gain the ball back but their clearing kick fell into the hands of fullback, Jack Rowlatt who immediatedly went on a powerful run and cut through Leamington's defence to score the first try, duly converted by William Dawson.

After securing the restart, Harborough kept piling on more pressure with good recycling of the ball, which eventually allowed Ben Marshall to break through and run from his own half to score under their posts. Dawson secured the conversion again.

After the re-start Leamington rallied for a period and put some pressure onto the Harborough defence but determined tackling by every Harborough player meant Leamington struggled to make much progress. The Harborough lads were very determined at the rucks, with the back row of Marshall, Oli Hoare and Will Adams giving the opposition no time to set up a secure platform to play from. Harborough went on the attack again with some determined running by Josh Guerriero and Sam Dexter resulting in Harborough getting back into the opposition 22. After several more phases Josh Ford, on his return from a long lay-off due to injury, crashed over the try-line to score. Well at least that's what the 30 players on the pitch thought. Whilst everyone looked at the referee for a response, he seemed to have lost his bearings on the pitch. Max Halls, just for good measure, picked up the ball and grounded it a few metres further over the line. Our ever well mannered Captain, Will Adams, was able to help the referee to reorientate himself with the statement " Isn't that the try line Sir?" The try was duly awarded resulting in Harborough being 19-0 up and leaving Josh and Max to discuss who's score it was. By this point Leamington had suffered a couple of injuries, so Geordan Bedford kindly agreed to go into their centres.

Harborough continued to play some fast moving rugby that Leamington struggled to defend against. Due to our regular selection of scrum-halfs being unavailable, Oscar Spiers stepped into the position and played really well with some excellent tracking of the ball and accurate passing to the fly-half. The backs didn't let the rather wet and miserable conditions interfere with their game and some excellent handling by Dawson, Joe Harrison and Tom Wainwright put Dexter in for his first try of the day.

Leamington lost another player to injury, so hooker Thomas Melody went to play prop for them to ensure we could continue to play a 30 man game. After that, Harborough continued to pile on the pressure resulting in Dexter getting another try and Wainwright running in 3 more.

Leamington showed great spirit and kept on battling. Wainwright swapped over on to the Leamington side and with him and Melody enjoying running at their own squad, Leamington had some good pressure towards the end of the game. They spent a good period of time camped within the Harborough 5m and Melody almost scored for them but was thwarted by Marshall, who according to Melody, pulled the ball away after he had grounded it, before the referee could see it. We'll leave them to argue that one between themselves!

Harborough were eventually able to get the ball away and into the Leamington half. A final break from prop Charlie Power resulted in the 9th try of the day with Dawson securing the extras. The referee ended the game at that point with the final score of MH 51 Leamington 0

Well done to our lads who supported Leamington with their injuries to ensure the game could continue and and it was great to see two squads playing their hearts out for 50mins and enjoying their rugby.

Bruce Wainwright