The Hertford Hoes scrapped out a good win against a strong Fullerians team, with the wind and scrum both playing decisive roles.

With the wind and a dominant scrum, Hertford sailed into a commanding 24-0 lead at half time without realising and appreciating the effect that they had had on the 40 minutes.

From the kick-off Hertford camped themselves in the Fullerians half, exerting relentless pressure on the opposition. This control may have made us over eager, but we gave away 4 penalties in a row. This was enough to try the patience of the ref, who decided that he had to sin-bin Callum, who had done little more than be close to somewhere that a penalty may have been conceded.

Even down to 14 men, we maintained the pressure. At one point we even went through about 15 phases of possession as we tried to break Fullerians down. As we swung from one side of the pitch to the other, the non-existent TV commentators would have commended our persistence as the phase total ticked over in the bottom corner of the screen, but queried where the spark would come from. Eventually, as we ran out of ideas, we ran into touch. Eventually there were some tries.

First up, we went quick from a penalty, bashed it up a few times, and the try-scoring machine Moley showed that he can still do it as he moves into his fourth decade.

Next up, the imposing (which is a euphemism for massive) front row of Molely, JP and Christo got on top of their opponents, and every scrum became an attacking platform for us. “We love scrummaging” was evident yet again as we went over for one push over, soon followed by another. Both were finished off by Tom Moss at no 8, who had another good game in the loose.

The first half was concluded with one of Captain Adam Robert’s upright and right-up at them runs, that was started on the half way line, shrugged off a couple of would-be tacklers and was then hauled down just short of the line with a high tackle. Penalty try. The centre partnership of Roberts and Romford had made good yards all day, and probably deserved more than their penalty try, but chin up lads. Noah also had some powerful runs from the wing.

Things looked pretty good at half time with the 24-0 lead and clear plan for how to finish off the game. Unfortunately as turned round we suddenly realised how strong the wind was. Fullerians also managed to match us in the scrum in second half.

Even the boot of Albon could not get us out of our half. This meant that we had the pleasure of being stuck mostly in our 22, desperately trying to play our way out. The hard yards were hard and didn’t result in many yards, as Fullerians took control. Whilst our tackling was not great on occasion, there were some decent breaks from the Fullerian forwards and their centres, which led to 3 tries for them to bring the score to 24-17.

With the game tightening up, we needed to be able to draw upon some of our bench strength, and up went the call for crowd favourite (the Termites certainly did a lot of shouting when he came on) Leon Seabrook to join us in the forwards. This introduction resulted in the second best highlight of an otherwise turgid second half. From a kick-off Leon caught the ball (big cheer from the crowd) and then, angry face on, he charged at the opposition. Boom came the contact. Then squeal went Leon as he ejaculated the ball into the air (very big cheer from the crowd).

We needed another saviour, and Mark Doherty came to the rescue. Back from injury for (probably) his first game of the season, he had shown glimpses of what he could until on one of our only forays into the Fullerians 22, he was given the ball 15 metres out with 3 defenders in front of him. Skip, show, go, skip and he had somehow weaved his way through the opposition without a hand on him to score a cracking and much needed try. It was a very bright spot of a not very bright second half for us. With the score at 31-17, we were able to control the rest of the game to complete a good win.

Team: J Mole, J Patton, C Kasabi, A Kaplan, A Church, C Basra, C Hedley (L Seabrook), T Moss; B Thomas, N Fulton (M Doherty), D Albon, A Roberts (c), D Holmes, M Bond (M Brewer), J Webb

Tries: Mole, Moss (2), Penalty, Doherty

Cons: Albon (2)