Hillingdon Abbots 0-62 Datchworth

Report by: Icarus Bryant-Fowler

In conditions that really did hot help, Datchworth were made to work quite hard by a resilient Hillingdon side, who showed great improvement from last year.

We agreed to play 3 x 20 min periods to give both sides a chance to try different combinations. The weather and driving rain resulted in a chaotic first two periods where Datchworth found it quite difficult to exert complete control. The Hillingdon scrum was equal to Datchworth, holding firm in the tight and out rucking in the loose, all be it with a liberal interpretation of knock-on and hands in the ruck. The wet ball having all the cohesion of a soap bar did not help either.

Having said that both sets of players stuck to their tasks and tried their best to play rugby. Datchworth broke the Hillingdon line at regular intervals and were superior in their ball handling and back play.

Hillingdon tried hard, but the Datchworth defence was able to keep them at bay. A point of improvement is the height of our tackling, which really does have to come lower, i.e. round the legs, if we are not going to fall foul of new tackle law instructions.

Overall a good effort from the boys if difficult conditions.

Man of the Match: Bartoz for great overall effort

Richard of the Day: Ieuan for trying one too many chip/grubber kicks in the Hillingdon 22.