With a reshuffled team from last week, Hitchin took the short journey to Datchworth in high spirits looking for a win to get their season back on track.
With a number of players playing out of their usual positions it was envisaged that the team would take a while to gel and get into a rhythm. This was not the case with Hitchin dominating possession from the start. With Kieran Barringer finding his feet in the centres after a few months out injured the centre of pitch was getting a lot of use along with Gordon White and also Christian Frisch who had a storming first game at fly half.
With the domination of possession and good offloading in the tackle from both forwards and backs throughout the game it was against the run of play that Datchworth took advantage to collect the ball from a high bounce to score. From the kick off Hitchin went straight back into the Datchworth half and continued to attack from the rucks and this enabled clean ball to be distributed to the backs. A number of harsh decisions from the ref stifled a number of try scoring opportunities for Phil Hobbs and Barringer. Eventually a number of phases were put together and some quick thinking enabled the free flowing rugby to put Simeon Green in to score with near enough every player involved in the build up. With the conversion unsuccessful half time came with the score at 5-7.
The second half continued with more of the same possession dominating play; however two quick counter attacking tries by Datchworth extended their lead. Hitchin continued to attack and didn’t give up and it was the Datchworth defence that thwarted any try scoring opportunity and if it wasn’t the Datchworth defence it was bad decision making meaning that attacks broke down and Hitchin would have to dust themselves off and try again.
….and try again they did with a number of picks ups from the back of the ruck and running at the heart of the defence by Joff, Andy Lockley, James 'Pumba' Drury, Dave Turner and Sam Underwood meant that Frisch, White and Barringer could again cause havoc in the Datchworth defence and allow Matt Hawtin to score. The score stayed this way until the final whistle (the whistle sounding like it would be more at home on a 1920s policeman).
The score line did not reflect the game itself and there were numerous positives to come out of the game, including the teams never give up attitude and their tight defensive work when on the back foot and also the teams ability to get the best out of players even if they are played in positions that were unfamiliar to them, cheers Kieran and Frisch.
Beard watch, a very lonely one on the list from hooker Lockley, however having seen the founding member and reason for beard watch prior to departing for the match nothing will come close to Brian Blessed-like growth on display.
Team Chris Johnson, Andy Lockley, Dave Turner, Max Melville, Philip Hobbs, Samuel Underwood, Kieran Barringer, James Drury, Sam Burton, Gordon White, Simeon Green, Christian Frisch, Joff Lord, Dermot Coughlan, Matthew Hawtin
Subs Rob Pankhurst, Kevin Lok
Scores T: Matthew Hawtin (1), Simeon Green (1)
Player(s) of Match 1. Kieran Barringer
League Tables