Sunday 11^th December 2011

Herts and Middlesex Division 6

Hammers 19 Verulamians 26

Hammers kick off on a cool winter’s morning in South Park against Verulamians from St. Albans, in a very exciting league match that as decided in the last play of the game.

The opening try was scored by Michael Byrne who picked up a loose pass off the opposition and showed a good turn of pace from the half way line, to score an unconverted try after one minute. But the Hammers didn’t hold onto the lead very long as Verulamians forced their way into our half from which they scored a try under the posts which was converted to make the score 5-7 to them. Poor tackling from he Hammers allowed Verulamians to score another converted try straight away. As the first half went on the Hammers tried to rally through forwards with Raphael Fackler, Henry Collins and Joe Proctor playing well, but the team lost the ball a lot through bad retention and by giving away a lot of penalties which allowed Verulamians to relived the pressure, so that score at half time was 5-14 to them.

The second started with the Hammers taking the game to Verulamians with our forwards putting a lot of pressure on the opposition and our backs through Theo Tsatsaris and Mathis Rosier gaining good ground from strong runs. Just as it seemed that the Hammers were not going to score the ball found its way to Alexandre Coyard who beat several players and ran in for a good try that was converted by Henry Collins to make the score 12-14. All this good work was undone by the Hammers as they did not tackling near a ruck close our line, so allowing Verulamians to score once again, making the score making the score 12-19 with 10 minutes of the match left. This last score by the opposition appeared to make the Hammers realise that they could do better and they started to play better rugby with forwards and backs producing good interplay. From some of this play second row Raphael Fackler ripped a ball a ruck and set off down the touchline from half way and out sprinted the covering Verulamians backs on a amazing run to scored near the posts which Henry Collins converted to make the score 19-19, with five minutes left. The Hammers went close to scoring again in the next couple of minutes with Alexandre Coyard, Raphael Fackler and Henry Collins going close all being denied by some desperate last ditched tackles by the opposition. Just as it seem that the match was going to end in a draw, Verulamians had a scrum just outside the Hammers twenty metre line in the last play of the game, from which their number eight picked up the ball from the base of the scrum and dummied his way over to score a try under the posts which was converted to make the final score 19-26 to Verulamians.

A great match that the Hammers could have won with a bit more application at critical points during the game.