Watford 22 – 12 Cuffley - 12-11-2005 |
Watford played Cuffley this week hoping to continue their winning run in the league, especially after last weeks 62 – 0 victory over Southgate. Watford started the game at a great pace, which forced the visitors to give away 5 penalties in the opening minutes. The pressure eventually told and winger Portway was able to round his man and touch down for the first score of the game. Unfortunately, this score came at a cost with centre Traxon suffering a suspected broken nose in the build up. This resulted in a substitution with Cox coming on in the centre. Watford continued to pressurise the away team, with their indiscipline costing them ground time after time. In Cufflleys first foray into the Watford 22 the referee gave a penalty to the home team and sin binned prop Nelson for dangerous play. This seemed especially harsh as the away seemed to have got away with numerous infringements at the beginning of the game. From one of these infringements Watford second score of the game came form open side flanker Mitchell. The Watford backs looked to get the ball out wide, with a miss directed pass getting a lucky bounce and falling kindly into the hands of the back rower to score to the left of the posts. The conversion was missed and the teams went into half time with the score 10 – 0 to the home team. A half time roasting from captain Nelson and coach Mealing, was designed to spark Watford into life and start playing the way they have over the last few weeks. The break seemed to galvanise the away team and Cuffley started the second half with their forwards looking to gain parity with the Watford pack. They started to do this which resulted in a score for the away team when after numerous rucks close to the home teams try line they managed to squeeze the ball over the line. The conversion was missed to make the score 10 – 5 to Watford. This gave the Cuffley pack renewed hope and the kept attacking in the same vein, mainly from line outs and mauling the ball up field. This pressure resulted in the away team being given a scrum 5 metres out from the Watford try line. After this had gone down twice the referee rather harshly gave a penalty try on the third occasion, even though all the players were still on their feet. The conversion from in front of the posts went over to give the away team the lead 12 – 10. After a dressing down from the captain and coach, 2 substitutions were made with flanker Hicks going into hooker and Ossowski coming onto the flank. Watford top try scorer Johnson also came on in the centres for De Klerk. From the resulting kick off Watford raised their game, and with number 8 Patterson looking to make holes and flanker Mitchell running off fly half Butcher to great effect, it seemed only a matter of time before the home team scored again. The score came from an attack on the blindside and with some perfectly timed passes, number 8 Patterson managed to score his fourth try in 2 games for the home team. The conversion was missed to give a score line of 15 – 12 to the home team. This score seemed to knock the away team back, and with numerous breaks being made, notably by wingers Van Bosch and Portway and centre Cox ably supported by full back Jenkins, it was inevitable that the home team would score again. The score came from replacement Johnson who took the ball on the burst and managed to break through a couple of tackles and out sprint the cover defence to score under the posts. At last scrum half Maney managed to convert a try to give a score line of 22 – 12 to the home team. Cuffley made on last effort to get another score but were repelled by the home team. This resulted in what the referee deemed to be a professional foul and the home team finished the game with 14 men as Maney was sin binned. Special mention should go to back rower Hicks who played 3 different positions in the game, back row, prop and hooker and to Man of the Match Mitchell for his stirling effort all round the pitch. Watford now has a two week break from the league campaign and hope to resume playing they way they are capable of after making hard work of this latest victory. This has resulted in Watford standing second in the league with only the unbeaten Saracens Amateurs above them. Team: Hickey, Sedgley, Nelson(c), Sharpe, Moore, Hicks, Mitchell, Patterson, Maney, Butcher, Portway, Traxon, De Klerk, Van Bosch, Jenkins. Subs used Johnson, Ossowski & Cox. |
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