Shelford Development Squad 36 Hertford 36     

By far our best display so far of throwing a game away. In what has become a trait in recent weeks we started poorly and finished poorly but with a decent display in between which in this instance cost us the win.

We allowed Hertford an easy start which they gladfully took and went 12 – 0 up and like recent games then we started to play and got ourselves back into the game with tries from James Worthington (2) and Chalky to lead 19 – 12 at the break.

Further tries in the second half from James Worthington, Callum Russell and Clem put us 36 – 19 up and then we stopped playing already deciding that we had done enough to win and that Hertford would now concede. Hertford to their credit never stopped playing and sloppy defence and a bit more internal bickering allowed them to gradually narrow this score. Three unanswered tries with one converted in the last fifteen minutes brought the scores level and ultimately should have lost us the game but the final conversion was missed. 

That is now two games on the trot, more annoyingly both of them at home, where we have tried our hardest not to win and throw the game away. We are a good side and are capable of scoring a decent amount of points each game but that is not enough for us to win matches. We have to continue with the basics, defend well, set up our phases and be much more clinical and ruthless. Our recent displays have been sloppy and only putting in patches of decent play a long way short of the 80 minutes worth that we need to. It will be a long hard season if we continue to put in performances like this but I believe that this is only a temporary blip and with everyone’s effort and focus can be put behind us starting with a much improved performance this coming weekend.