Saracens Ams Vs Watford RFC

Good defence by the away team and a push over try not giving resulted in the home team not getting the score they deserved. The opening score of the game came from the away team who moved the ball through their backs at every opportunity that they could. This seemed to give the away team the belief that they could score more often as long as the ball was moved wide.

Watford were not helped by not being able to pick 3 of their starting backs before the game, and then lost influential flay half Ian Butcher to an injury. This led to a reshuffle with the versatile Sven Ossowski moving to the fly half position and the all the other outside backs shuffling in one so that substitute flanker Craig Wadey could fill in on the wing. This disrupted the home team as the rest of the game continued in the same fashion, the Watford forwards winning good set piece ball and the ball then being turned over and the Saracens backs were fed the ball for them to attack the disorganised Watford backs.

Further injuries to prop Trevor Hickey, who was replaced by veteran Dennis Reilly and winger Jon Portway, which led to replacement Mark Hicks going to flanker and one of Watfords players of the season so far Dave Mitchell moving into the centres. This resulted in even more disruption which the away team again exploited. Watford managed to grab a consolation score near the end of the game, with Mitchell touching down for his 6th try of the season after a quickly taken penalty. The final score was 67 – 5 to the away team to inflict Watfords first home loss of the season and their second in the league, to the same team.

Watford resume league action this week away to Wasps and hope to get back to their normal game and winning ways, but most hope that the injuries suffered are not too bad and that they have a full compliment of players to choose from. There chances of winning the league are now out of their hands, but there is still second place and promotion to play for.

They must also hope that their kicking game gets resolved this week as well, as too much ball either missed touch from penalties, was kicked away to dangerous backs and restarts actually go where they are supposed to. All in all it was a one sided affair and a rare bad day at the office for Watford, although special mention should be given to Watfords fill in full back Mike Dawe who did everything he possibly could to try and stem the flow of tries.

Team: Hickey, Hassett, Nelson(c), Moore, Stevens, Sharpe, Mitchell, Patterson, Maney, Butcher, Portway, Ossowski, Ross, De Klerk, Dawe. Subs used, D Reilly, Hicks, and Wadey. Sub not used Sedgley.