8th February – Harwich
Result: Harwich 78 Aldeburgh 5
A brave effort
After a long winter break, Aldeburgh continue to struggle to field a team. Great credit is due to the determination of the coach and captain and the commitment of a hard core of players to make this fixture happen. It was always going to be a tough one.
Harwich, in the spirit of the Game On principles, lent Aldeburgh a full front row plus one other to complement the numbers we had taken. Players entered into the spirit of it by playing out of position as required. A half back pairing of Jon Hunt and Adam Hateley would not have been predicted at the start of the season. Both stuck at it to produce solid performances.
It became obvious within the first couple of minutes that this was going to be a long afternoon. Aldeburgh’s scrum just about held for Jon to get out a pass to Adam who, from inside his own half, launched a clearing kick downfield. The Harwich full back caught the ball cleanly then weaved his way through the whole Aldeburgh team to touch down. Their fly half, who looked like a prop, kicked the conversion as he did the following seven from all angles. He could run and pass too.
Despite having a scratch team, Aldeburgh managed to play some sensible rugby, moving the ball around and gaining territory. However, when they lost it, Harwich ran back from their own half with quick passing and powerful running to score.
Another attack by Harwich was stopped by a trade mark tackle by full back Ollie Taylor. An ex-rugby league player, his tackling is ferociously hard. Nevertheless, Harwich kept on scoring. After half an hour with the score at 28-0, captain Freddie Burgess had to leave the field after taking a painful blow in the back.
Harwich’s scrum half varied their attack by audaciously sending out a kick pass to his unmarked winger in his own half. The winger had the space to clear the covering defence to score.
Before half time there was an incident when Ollie Taylor made another powerful tackle which resulted in the Harwich player landing heavily to which many of his colleagues objected forcefully. The referee decided that, although the tackle was perfectly fair, Ollie had lost control of the player while he was in the air so awarded a penalty. Hard to see what else Ollie could have done but it was a fair decision. His tackle had been on the try line. Harwich tapped the penalty, took two passes and scored in the corner.
A half time score of 42-0 was ominous. Because of various injuries, Harwich opted not to provide a replacement to even up the numbers so played most of the second half with an extra man. In the light of that, the final result was a credit to the determination of the Aldeburgh team (and their Harwich loanees) to keep battling.
The Harwich scrum half displayed the variety of his talents for the first two tries of the second half. Collecting the ball behind an attacking ruck, he considered his options then fired out a long pass which was moved on the winger in space who scored. For the next try, he jinked through the middle himself.
Ryan Ellis had to leave the field with a shoulder injury causing even more disruption. Despite that, Aldeburgh continued to compete.
The highlight of the match from Aldeburgh’s point of view came in the last couple of minutes. Jon Hunt found touch with a penalty (as he had reliably done all afternoon). A safe move because Josh Darling (second row, jumping at two in the line) had been winning line out ball cleanly. On this occasion, Josh caught the ball, turned and ran straight through the Harwich line, brushed off a tackle and touched down. There were several cries of ‘Last try wins’.
The guys who played had clearly enjoyed getting out and having a game of rugby. The team avoided having five points deducted for not fulfilling a fixture. Credit to all for making it happen.