League opening defeat for 2's

With the succeses of last season a distant memory Epping 2s arrived at Hitchin to begin there campain in a new league.
During the summer both the 2's and 3's have switched from Essex to Hertfordshire Merit tables.The reason for the seconds is that they need to be playing more competitive matches against similar 2nd teams that will in turn help players who are on the fringe of first team rugby.

The team welcomed back Toby Sweeney who was making his first start after a year off witth injury. Harry Wood was also playing in his first senior game while the Colts were well represented by Des Griggs, George Cook, Nick Conway and Will Parish.
Kurtis Knightly kicked off with a high hanging ball that was taken by the home sides number 8 who thend then felt the force of player coack Mark Kent at 48 being the first to arrive with a bone crunching tackle. Epping regained posession and was then awarded a penalty for off side that Knightly converted to give the visitors an early lead.

Any thoughts that the game was going to be a stoll in the park were quickly put to bed as Hitchin replied with avengence as they began to dictate play and starve the visitors of any clean ball. During this spell Hitchin scored two converted tries and a penalty to leave the half time score at 17 points to 3.
Clapton made several changes at half time that included all of the colts replacing there senior counterparts.
The visitors new that the tempo had to be increased and began the second half attempting to play from deep. Unfortunately handing errors led to Hitchin regaining posession and scoring to increase there lead once more.
With the homeside domintating the breakdown, scrum half John Gunnel was having a torrid time trying to release there talented back division. When the ball did find its way into mid filed it was closely followed by some hard hitting home tackles. Clapton were finding success however by kicking the ball over the oncoming defence. This was to lead to two tries through the extremley impressive Des Griggs and also fellow colt George Cook.
Hitchin managed one further try to leave the final score at 29-17

Not the start Claptons 2nd team were expecting but exactly what is needed if the team are going to develop this season.
If this is the sign of matches to come then work must be done on the patterns the seniors are currently implementing and that can only be down by players TRAINING!!

Positives that can be taken from this game was the impact the Colts made from the bench that culminated in tries fro both George and Des, master Griggs also being awarded the man of the match for his overall tenacious display..

Next week the 2s return to Hitchin once more but this time to play Weston in another merit table match.