Henley 2^nd XV 32 - 12 Shelford Development Squad 

After a tough and exhilarating midweek win the squad had to lift themselves for the biggest league game of the season against league leaders Henley. The game started slowly with Shelford coughing up possession easily and then Henley scoring in the corner to go 5 points up. We were not concerned as we knew we would be dangerous with ball in hand and proved so with a number of telling breaks around the outside which the Henley cover defence managed to cope with effectively. Yet again we were guilty of not giving the killer pass as a number of breaks and quick tap penalties which created opportunities were not converted. Henley scored again in the corner to go 10 points up before Shelford struck back through fly-half Andy Daly who gathered his own chip and went in under the posts. A penalty miss in the dying minutes of the first half meant that Shelford were still 3 points in arrears at the break.  

Unfortunately despite the narrow gap and a scrappy start by Henley to the second half we were unable to get into the game and Henley’s bullish Winger (A Chalkie 2.0 upgrade) made the most of our inability to deal with him as he ran in 4 tries. We did get in with a sniff after a quick switch of direction saw Andy Daly go over for a second score, but we could not string together enough possession to create any real threat and spent most of the half defending.  

There were some excellent performances even in defeat led mainly by the colts in the squad with Dan Reilly and Ian Morrison both shining.  We were guilty not only of missing first up tackles and not commanding enough at the breakdown but also of taking out frustrations on one another. We must train hard and get the cohesion back this week at training as this was a definitely a resounding bump back to earth after Wednesday nights jubilation.  Next Saturday is Esher at Home and we will be looking to get back on track with a strong performance against a side we lost to earlier in the season and are very motivated to turn over at Davey Field.