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Under 15s - Hatfield Comets V Northampton Knights 

Kindly sponsored by William Sutton Homes

Northampton Knights made the trip down the M1 for their Round 4 match in the Chiltern League against Hatfield Comets knowing that a victory would keep them top of the table at the half way stage of the season. Their two first tackles were completed well but on the third they dropped the ball in the tackle. The situation was redeemed when the Knights forced the Comets into touch. From the scrum Lewis Bailey made his customary break, ball in one hand and pumping his legs for maximum power and speed, half the length of the field and after passing the ball along the line Gregor Wood was the recipient of a forward pass. The Comets enjoyed a spot of possession with their centre making a strong break before one of his team mates dropped the ball. Loose forward Roff was the subject of a high tackle and right on cue Bailey made yet another break and Aiden Power was on hand to score a try which Sam Dawes converted. After errors by both sides the Knights found themselves with an overlap situation but were unable to convert it into a try as Wood knocked on when a try was within reach. The Comets fought back at this point with a number of breaks but then both sides were guilty of handling errors and the Hatfield team were then penalised for dissent. Loose forward Roff drove the ball close to the line and shortly afterwards Bailey scored a try to make the score 10 – 0 in the Knights favour.

An excellent Knights kick off from the restart was knocked on by the Comets and from the scrum Josh Dawes scored an excellent try. Another stunning restart from the Knights saw a knock on in the Knights favour but sadly poor handling by the Knights saw possession turnover to the Comets. This loss proved costly as the Comets scored a well deserved try under the posts and they could have made the score even closer but knocked on at a vital time. Just before the half time whistle Hanger and Martindale combined and the latter persons neat side step and shimmy was rewarded with a try to make the half time score 18 – 4 in the Knights favour. If the Knights were to record their 4^th victory in the competition they would have to respect the ball more and not make silly passes early in the tackle count or on their own line. This was the message that rookie coach Wilson no doubt bagged home to the players at the interval.

The message did not get through at the start of the second half and it was only an excellent try saving tackle from Jack Debenham that prevented the Comets from closing the gap. To make the tackle even better the opposition lost the ball. The Knights punished this mistake and Jake Siddons scored a try under the black dot with Josh Dawes converting the try to make the score 24 – 4. Siddons was again to the fore of the game with an excellent pass to Bailey but his pass managed to find an opponent.  A strong run by forward Power, which typified his game, was shortly rewarded with a try to Glyn Roff. After this try a Comets player was sent off for dissent shown to the referee. Next up was Siddon who exerted further pressure on the Comets try line and this led to a second try for Roff which Josh Dawes converted to make the score 34 – 4 in Norths favour.

The last section of the game was typified by a Northampton team keeping going until the last minute. Debenham made another try saving tackle, two strong runs from Wood and Dan Jones coming close to scoring a try. Stand off Harman was correctly penalised by the referee for obstruction when he had 3 players on his outside.This pressure was rewarded by a try to Power with a close range effort. This made the final score 38 – 10 in the Knights favour.

Team:  1. Jack Debenham 2. Tino Decaro 3. Sam Dawes 4. Josh Dawes 5. Gregor Wood 6. Ben Harman 7. Ben Hanger 8. Aiden Power 9. Max Dawson 10. Lewis Bailey 11. Jake Siddons 12. Callum Jackson 13. Glyn Roff 14. Will Thornton 15. Tom Wilkinson 16. Scott Martindale 17. Alex Coombes 18. Dan Jones 19. Harry Mosdell

Tries:  Aiden Power 2, Glyn Roff 2, Josh Dawes, Lewis Bailey, Jake Siddons, Scott Martindale

Goals: Josh Dawes 2, Sam Dawes     

Coaches Man of the Match: Jake Siddons

Players Man of the Match: Aiden Power

After the match in his regular post match press conference coach Wilson offered these words, “I am again very happy with the result and commitment of the players on a bitterly cold morning. Had you offered me that result and scoreline before the game I would have snapped it up. In reality I think we won that one without playing near our potential, something I have been told is a sign of a very good team! I think myself and the players know that we have things to work on this week but I am confident that we can once again build on a fine result and improve even further.” “Special credit today has to go to Aidan Power once more. This lad seems to get better each week and I am glad that our team don't have to face him. He gave us fantastic go forward once more and made plenty of dents in the opposition. His barnstorming runs got us out of trouble on many occasions. I don't think I will ever forget his monster run with about 7 players clinging onto him either.”

“I also thought Jake Siddons was fantastic today. He typified what a second rower should is. Jake returned from injury this week and got through a mountain of work and did the dirty stuff that often goes unnoticed. He made an error early on but spent the rest of the game making up for that mistake and paid us back with interest.” “Well done to everyone today on another determined display, lets hit the training pitch this week and work really hard on improving the areas of our game that went wrong. There is a long way to go yet in this season and we are nowhere near home and dry.”