Match report courtesy of Mr Alfred Church .........

On the weekend of John Atkinson’s 80th birthday, he managed to come up with a great present for the Vets in the form of a home game…but against the Fullerians 2s team that had comprehensively beaten our 3s a few weeks before. Thanks Atky. Our present in return was a star studded performance and a victory for Hertford’s omnipresent stalwart – happy birthday Atky (British Empire Medalist).

Faced with a very tough fixture, Captain Storey had to use his best persuasive skills to assemble a competitive team. He did pretty, coming up with three ex-internationals. Step forward old boys Simon Lawrence (England Deaf) and Robbie Morris (England), as well as former 1s coach and current juniors coach Mr Michael Owen (Wales and the Lions). Not bad.

Ben also persuaded Nick Voss that another run out at the age of 57 was a good idea – he will hopefully be back for more – and the wandering minstrel Owen Dwyer was also in town for the weekend for sidesteps and beer.

With the Vets Assembled, we started the game like it was a blockbuster. Heady enthusiasm, legerdemain, joie de vivre and Igolan-Robinson were all there in the first 5 minutes as the team skipped about the park as if we were 21 year olds again. Neat interplay, some driving runs, and Mr Owen found himself over the line but held up; fortunately Moss was on hand to strip the ball from him and flop to the floor. During the jog back to the half line, one of the wise old heads said that we wouldn’t be able to keep it up. And they were right.

The forwards decided to give the backs a rest and show them what a Hertford forward pack does best: scrums. If JP had been there he would have been cheering we love scrummaging. The Fullerians prop, who had been up against Robbie in the game earlier in the season, had made it clear he was not best pleased to be up against him again! With a series of three dominant scrums we piled our way towards the Fullerians line, and then after a couple of drives Mr Owen squeezed himself over for his debut try on his debut game for the club. The pernod shaker was not taken that evening, but is being held in reserve for next time.

Unsurprisingly, Mr Owen’s contribution to the game was pretty immense and something that all the other players will hopefully have appreciated. Fierce tackles, a taste for the contact in attack and some deft appreciation for space as the game opened up. One of the finer moments however, and a lesson to us all, was the calm head as the hand bags were coming out in the second half and the Welsh version of the scouser “calm down calm down” and some sensible words to put the whole thing in perspective.

Anyway, having run out of running puff following the first 5 minute burst and then running out of forward puff after the scrum-athon to put us 12-0 up, the youthful Fullerians – who didn’t look like that had anyone over 35 years old – came right back into it. The back-row / hooker turned the ball over in their 22 and proceeded to outpace the entire Hertford team whilst sprinting the full length. This was then followed up by another couple of tries, where they unsportingly used pace again to beat us, before half time to make it 12-21.

The second half led to Captain Storey taking over from the energetic and relatively youthful Sloanzy who had a Christmas lunch to get to (he loves a Christmas lunch, so we were very grateful for the 40 mins he gave us), and Ben steered us towards an increasingly tense victory as we very gradually ground down Fullerians.

For all his hip swerves and basketball passes, Storey has always had the ability to bulldozer and this is what he did for his first try in the second half after lots of phases. Whilst every player could see he had grounded the ball following a big tackle from Fullerians, the ref did not and sensibly asked the Fullerians player whether Ben had grounded it; in a noble act, the Fullerians prop accepted that Ben had scored. If Sloanzy had still been there he would have said it was Corinthian. We were closing the gap - 19-21.

Fullerians began to lose players as the game became more attritional and their lack of subs began to hurt them. Bravo to Ben Griffiths who stood up to play for them – at full back! He actually did really well, with plenty of opportunity to run in open spaces, although on one occasion the open space was quickly closed down by Robbie and the hit was massive.

The game became tense as we all began to acknowledge that we actually wanted to win. Indeed it got so bad we actually elected to kick a penalty. Yes, kicking a penalty. Simon Lawrence slotted it over and we had a 22-21 lead.

With minutes remaining, any mistake by us and the pacey Fullerians would have taken the game. As it was, we continued to apply pressure, with Lawrence cutting back inside and committing several defenders with his running angle and very large squeal as he pulled his calf muscle; fortunately he managed to offload to Storey before flinging himself to the ground, who stormed over for the decisive try. 27-21 and we were done.

Songs, snake-bite and Christmas jumpers followed. Atky also got a big thanks.

Team: Humphries (Jason), Massey (Nelson), Morris, Griffiths (Voss), Church, Douglas, Moss, Owen; Giddings, Gawthorne, Preece (Igolan-Robinson), Sloan (Storey), Lawrence (Dwyer), Seabrook (Neam), Brady

Tries: Moss, Owen, Storey (2)

Pen: Lawrence and 2 cons