Watford 1st XV 17 - 8 Tring 3rds

Tring started the better side where they camped in the Watford half for the first 15 minutes with good defensive work keeping the visitors from scoring. Tring had the upper hand in the scrums, winning ball easily and were soon 3 - 0 up after Watford conceded a penalty outside their own 22. This was a wakeup call for the Watford tight five and although Tring had the upper hand in the scrums, Watford managed to steal a lot of the opposition line-out ball.

Both sides tried to pass the ball at every opportunity and only the sheer individual brilliance from the Watford veteran flyhalf, Peter Jenkins, allowed Watford to score their first points and first try of the game.From a centre-field scrum, Jenkins cut back on a double dummy pass as the defence drifted across and allow him to cut through the defence, beating two defenders and then the fullback to score the try to the right of the posts. Maney missed the conversion attempt. This was very much against the run of play and Watford knew they would have to work hard to win this game.

As the game grew on, so did Watford's confidence and they were unlucky not to score again with centre's Cox and Johnson breaking the defence only for knock-on's and 'dubious' forward passes at final phases preventing them from scoring. David Mitchell, Craig Wadey and Mick Mealing started to dominate the loose phases with Wadey always the first to the breakdown and Michell was unlucky not to score having been stopped 5 metres before the try line.

Half time : Watford 5 - 3 Tring

The second half started positively, only this time Watford were the ones applying the pressure in the Tring half. Ten minutes into the half, captain Nelson rung the changes which saw Gary Bridge and Jon Stevens come on and this seemed to have a massive impact on the tight phases and scrums. Sloppy defensive work allowed Tring to score and take the lead. With everything geared up for an exciting finish, it was Watford who regained the lead after the forwards had setup good phases for the backs and it was Traxton who scored a splendid try in the right hand corner after seeing the ball go through the backline. Equally impressive was Maney's touchline conversion.
12 - 8 to Watford.

In the last 15 minutes, fitness was the difference between the two sides where Watford took complete control of the scrums and pushed the heavier Tring pack, putting them under severe pressure the in process. Johnson was his menacing self, whenever he had the ball he managed to beat three or four players and on this occasion setup the try for Bartram, and to put the game out of the visitors sights.

Overall a good result but there is another big test which see us take on May & Baker in the next round of the cup.

Final score : Watford 17 - 8  Tring

Scorers : Try by Peter Jenkins, Jamie Traxton & Danny Bartram.
Conversion by Simon Maney (1)

1 - Trevor Hickey
2 - James Sedgley
3  -Peter Nelson
4 - Andre Paul
5 - Rob Moore
6 - David Mitchell
7 - Craig Wadey
8 - Mick Mealing

9 - Simon Maney
10 - Peter Jenkins
11 - Danny Bartram
12 - Peter Cox
13 - Adam Johnson
14 - Sven Ossowski
15 - Jamie Traxton

Subs (All used)
Gary Bridge
Jon Stevens
James Rose

Written by Sven the Saffa