Five-try Tabard see off Welwyn

London Two North West

Tabard 29 Welwyn 15

TABARD ran in five tries to secure a good win against Welwyn on Saturday.

For once Tabard started in the ascendancy and after four minutes of early pressure they were over for their first try. Close to the Welwyn line, No.8, Cam O’Connor made the initial thrust before feeding second row, Sam Barrow who went over the line unopposed for the score. Welwyn although still under pressure, were able to force Tabard back into their own half by kicking out of defence and, from the resulting pressure, Tabard infringed in the loose and the Welwyn centre Banks, kicked the three points from virtually the half way line.

Welwyn then applied pressure to Tabard but slow passing enabled the Tabard centre, Pete Sleath, to intercept and scurry away virtually the length of the pitch before passing to wing Steve Jenkins to touch down under the posts to give Barrow an easy conversion.

Although Tabard were superior up front, which gave them a good platform to work from, Welwyn still had plenty of fight left. They put Tabard under pressure and from a lineout close in, the forwards drove for the corner to score with Hooker Banks claiming the try, to close the gap to four points.

Tabard were not finished however and scored two more tries before half time. For the first the referee played advantage after a Welwyn knock on and this led to a hesitation in the covering defence and Tabard’s wing, Jenkins, weaved his way unerringly through before feeding Sleath for the try. The second try came from a rolling maul following a line-out with O’Connor claiming the touch down and Barrow adding the two points to put Tabard 24 points to eight ahead at half time.

After the pace of the first half the second half was disappointing with both sides letting mistakes mar their performance. Even so both sides had their defence tested, especially Tabard who managed to keep Welwyn at bay after a determined assault on their line. In the end a Tabard period of pressure eventually saw the ball in the clear after several phases of play and flanker Scott Stoba was over for Tabard’s final try. Welwyn refused to give up however and their reward came with a try at the end of the game when they went through the phases and flanker Roberto was over for the score which Banks converted.

Next week Tabard are at home to Old Reigations in the third round of the Intermediate cup, kick off 2pm.

Tabard: Hopcroft, Jenkins, Sleath, Arasa (O’Neill 62), Lewis, Edwards, Gough (Reilly 40), B Lake, Hart, W Lake, Barrow, Hall, Calnan, Stoba, O’Connor.