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Watford kicked off on a heavy pitch in rainy conditions to Hemel and made a storming start with a strong chase that immediately put the away side under the cosh, causing them to make couple of mistakes and concede turnover ball. Watford were able to exert some considerable pressure and had set pieces in good attacking positions however though they probed they were unable to penetrate some well organised defence. Finally a quick tap penalty was taken in fromt of the posts and Olsen with hair flowing (a welcome return to the back row after an abscence of a couple of months), was able to touch down relatively easily. Dawe converted to take the score to 7-0 to Watford.
Suddenly Watford seemed to sit back and allow Hemel to come into the game, their scrummaging began to pressurise the home 8 and their fly half kicked very intelligently always making good distance and was so accurate that Watford's back three were unable to counterattack or clear their lines effectively. The Hemel line out too was functioning more reliably than Watford's and gave them the platform to play the majority of the second quarter in the Watford half. Though Watford defended stoutly holding up a Hemel player over the line at one point. Eventually the pressure told and a Hemel try resulted from a clearing kick being charged down, rebounding behind the line and as no defender took the responsibility of tidying up a grateful Hemel player was able to ground the ball. The conversion was slotted over to make the score 7-7 at half time.
Though the second quarter had been dominated by Hemel, Watford were gamely trying to run the small amount of quality ball that they were getting, Dawe was looking lively at 10 and Johnson and Wilson in particular had always looked pacy and capable of causing problems. Disaster struck at the restart when Hemel kicked deep to Watford whom attempted to move the ball wide through several pairs of hands before Kiely put in a lengthy clearance kick deep into the Hemel half on the right wing. The chasing backs failed to tackle the full back who ran open and managed to start a move that ended up with a team mate scoring right in by the Watford left hand touchline. Too many home tackles had been missed and the defensive dog leg was safely navigated around with ease by the Hemel side.
The remainder of the second half was dominated by Watford whose pack turned the screw in the scrum and were now pushing their opposite numbers back at every opportunity. They had almost complete territorial dominance, broken occasionally by continually excellent clearance licks from the Hemel 10. The Watford backs finally enjoyed some posession but either they were running too flat or the passing was just not quite good enough. Watford players got penalised twice for crossing/accidental offside, took hasty unsupported tap penalties and continued to take wrong options, or drop the ball when in good positions. Finally Wilson and Mullins forced an error out wide forcing the Hemel winger to drop the ball; from the ensuing confusion a ruck was formed from the back of which Johnson was able to travel the short distance to the line and ground the ball. The conversion was crucially missed leaving the score at a tantalising 12-12.
Watford continued to press without ever really getting behind or around the Hemel defence. perhaps their best opportunity was right at the death when full back Frankish ran at the line but got caught in two minds and ended up being tackled and throwing out a poor pass to winger Hicks who was unable to capitalise.
In the final analysis Watford enjoyed a lot of posession without looking like penetrating the Hemel defence often enough. Sometimes they needed to be more patient and go through the phases rather than trying to come up with that special pass or break. There were a couple of occasions in the second half when they could have perhaps opted to kick for the three points (which would have been crucial) rather than take quick penalties that resulted in nothing. All in all I guess it was a good run out for the side who are back in Merit Table action against Hemel 4th's next week (it'll be interesting to see how the make up of that Hemel side will differ from Saturday's!)
Watford - Reilly, Vincent, Andre, Davies, Mikey, Bridge, Olsen, Mullins, Thompson, Dawe, Wilson, Johnson (De Honri), Kiely, Hicks, Frankish.
Tries
Olsen
Johnson
Conversion
Dawe
Man of the match
Dawe
Report - Andy Frankish |
