Sat 26 Oct 2019
The final result will stand for all time as a narrow Welsh win but Letchworth showed great heart in this stirring performance where they went so close to causing a real upset against the league leaders.
This was a much improved effort by Dave Hynard’s men with several new faces making themselves known especially new fly half Barney Dunscombe who had a great first half before he had to retire with a cramp. Legends had a mighty first half against the wind soaking up all the pressure that London Welsh could throw at them and then ripping through with two great tries ... and there could have been a couple more as well at this stage as outside the home side had the mastery over their visitors. Both Gurure and Kitson - the Letchworth flyers - had a great first forty minutes but unfortunately as the weather deteriorated severely in the second half they rarely had a chance to go on from this. There was also a bit of good fortune for the league leaders as the wind changed direction at half time and whilst Welsh’s last conversion looked like it had crossed the post and was allowed, Lewis Waters last penalty looked good but the flags stayed down! Such are the minutiae on which narrow victories are achieved!
Playing with a stiff breeze behind them the Welsh were soon on the attack and took three early points then missed another kickable penalty. However Letchworth gradually began to get their hands on the ball and a superb intercepting break by the industrious Chris Gibbs and a great pass to flying winger Kitson saw a great try converted by Dunscombe to make it 7/3 to the home side.
Another attack by Letchworth saw Kitson brought down head high only 10 yards from the line and the Welsh seven received 10 minutes in the sin bin. Letchworth were now looking dangerous as soon as the ball moved wide and the Johal cousins in the centre made plenty of room for their wingers. Another great passage of play saw Arun Johal nearly through and then an across the field move from Kitson through various hands saw his opposite winger Tattinda Gurure show his pace as he went in for a great try out wide but the conversion, crucially, was narrowly missed. Another penalty saw Letchworth take a fifteen three point lead and it looked like the visitors could be in trouble. However they did not panic and struck back with a seven pointer of their own bang on the stroke of half time to leave it finely poised at 15/10.
The awful weather now meant that both sides left the field for half time and when they emerged the wind seemed to have changed direction which was bad luck on the home side. However more great back play saw Letchworth right down on the London Welsh line in the early stages of the second half. But in the torrential rain that was now falling it was the bulky Welsh forwards who took a hand and won a succession of scrum penalties and moved steadily up the field. This pressure finally resulted in what turned out to be the winning score as at 15/15 the somewhat dubious conversion was allowed.
In desperation Letchworth now took a few chances running from deep in their own half and were nearly punished with an interception try by London Welsh before the referee brought the game back for a scrum. In the last ten minutes Letchworth had two penalties to squeeze past their opponents. Waters first effort was badly skewed - a shot recognised by many of the Letchworth golfers watching! - but the second, although it appeared good, was not given and the palpable relief shown by the visitors at the end demonstrated just how close the gallant Legends had come.
So although it was another league defeat there are encouraging signs that things are moving in the right direction for Dave Hynard, Jaggi Johal and their charges.
Next week there is no game and the club is open from 8am for the WORLD CUP FINAL with bacon and sausage rolls ... before the clash of the Garden Cities at Welwyn on Nov 9th.
Team
ROBINSON
Hatch
Turner
Brierley
Brain
Schoeman
Stacey
Flatman
Gibbs
Dunscombe
Gurure
Johal Arun
Johal Aman
Kitson
Anthony
Stokes
Waters
Denooijer
Please enter your page detail here. This can be HTML or text. To edit click the first menu icon on the small HTML menu that appears when you click on this text. Please use the elements on the right if you wish to construct a richer page content with headers, images and layout grids.
