Stevenage 5 - 24 Watford - 11-03-2006

Scrum half Simon Maney converted to make the early score 7 – 0 to the away team. This seemed to spur the home team, and after some poor tackling in midfield, their centre scored beside the posts. With the conversion missed Watford led 7 – 5. Playing down the slope and with the wind against them, Watford looked to play the game with ball in hand. Some great line out work by Matt Sharpe, being ably supported by Trevor Hickey and captain Peter Nelson, led to Watford being able to disrupt the home teams line out, with hooker James Sedgley doing particularly well at the front of the line out tidying up the scraps from the oppositions ball.

The scrums, which have been Watfords strength all season, were again very destructive, with coach Mick Mealing Senior filling in in the second row and providing great power for the front row. With number 8 Mark Patterson again controlling things at the back of the scrum, Watford had lots of ball for the backs to use. Returning flanker Tom Kiely was all over the pitch as if he hadn’t been away for 4 months, and he was helping to secure ball.

In an effort to slow Watford down Stevenage were penalised close to their own line, and a quick pass out to Man of the Match Peter Cox in the centres allowed him to step inside one tackler and take another with him over the line. With the conversion missed the half time score was 12 – 5 to Watford.

The talk at half time was of playing with confidence, making sure that composure was kept and to keep going until the end of the game as the home team would not want to lose to a team from a lower division. The home team came out determined to get back into the game, but with some good defending from notably centre Andy Kiely and full back Peter Jenkins the home team were not able to cross the line.

The next score of the game came from good defensive work, with fly half Ian Butcher forcing his opposite number into a mistake and picking the ball up from the half way line and using his pace to outstrip the covering wingers. With the conversion added by Maney, the score was now 19 – 5 to the away team. The game then proceeded to be like a game of tennis, with the ball going from one end of the pitch to the other, which was not helped by some rather strange decisions by the referee, which affected both teams.

Watford’s pack were now well on top, which was demonstrated by a scrum on the Stevenage 22 metre line. It finished up 2 metres out from the try line where the home team had to infringe to stop top try scorer no 8 Patterson scoring, for only the second time this season. Mike Dawe came on for Jon Portway on the wing, who had another fine game, the substitute then seemed to be like a magnet to the ball and he made good ground every time he had the ball in hand. Twice he was denied by the final pass not going to hand.

Clarke Jenner came on for Ossowski for only his second appearance of the season, but was just as effective as Ossowski, putting big tackles. The final score of the game was a fine effort from the backs, notably centre Kiely who looped round his own pass and passed to winger Leon De Klerk who showed great strength to beat the covering defence to score his second try in two games. The conversion fell just short to leave the final score as 24 – 5 to Watford.

Watford have their first home game for the last few weeks against Borehamwood this Saturday kicking off at 2.30 pm.

Team: Hickey, Sedgley, Nelson (c), Sharpe, Mealing Snr, Ossowski, T Kiely, Patterson, Maney, Butcher, Portway, Cox, A Kiely, De Klerk, Jenkins. Subs used Dawe & Jenner.