Date: Sat 28th Apr 2018

Time: 3:00pm

Match Report

On a drizzly cold Cup Final day Harlow quickly brought the game to life.
Within the first minute of the game centre Ross Stalley broke through the opposition backs & released full back Michael Dodds into space to run in Harlow’s first try. With a successful conversion kick by Danny Smith Harlow established an early 7- 0 lead.
The Romford pack started to pen back Harlow within their 22 metre line . A series of driving mauls pushed the Harlow pack backwards towards their try line.
Unfortunately Harlow were penalised by the referee for illegally stopping the maul and Romford were awarded a penalty try levelling the score at 7 – 7 .
The Harlow pack struggled to get clean ball to their fast back line as the Romford forwards sucked them in. Danny Smith did capitalised on Romford errors and kicked two penalties to give Harlow a 13 – 10 lead after 30 minutes. Just before half time number 8 Karl Roddel caught a defensive kick and released winger Scott Whitby to score Harlow’s second try making the score 18 – 7 at half time.
The start of the second Half saw The Romford pack driving Harlow back on their 5 metre line, then peeling off and scoring, bringing the score to 18 – 12.
The tables seemed to be turning in Romford’s favour as No 8 Karl Roddel was yellow carded for not rolling away from a maul. With 14 men fly half Danny Smith created a great individual try by kicking through the Romford defence, collecting his kick to power over the line. With the conversion kick Harlow had one hand on the cup with the score at 25 – 12.
Harlow were not their yet Romford were not giving up and after 70 minutes scored their third try reducing Harlow’s lead to 25 – 19.
The final 10 minutes saw Harlow defending their lead and at long last the referee blew the final whistle to confirm Harlow as Essex Intermediate Cup Final Winners.

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