Harwich bounce back against Mistley

With Harwich losing last time out and Mistley desperate to gain the victory and coming into some form a close contest was expected.

Mistley kicked off down the slope and with a bitter wind to their backs put pressure on Harwich from the start. With Shaun Fox kicking Harwich out of danger, Mistley found themselves under pressure. From a lineout just outside the Mistley 22, veteran scrum half Kier Blacker spotted a gap in the rushing Mistley defence and burst through, with the Mistley fullback closing in Blacker off-loaded to the quicker Fox who would score after just 3 minutes. Harwich had the start they wanted and with the conversion missed lead 5-0.

Harwich were then quickly back on the attack, the ball was shifted from the centre of the field to the right which dragged the Mistley defence to one side, Harwich as they have done for most of the season spun the ball wide to the left-hand side for winger Ian Flook to score in the corner to extend there lead to 10-0.

Mistley however were next to get on the score sheet. Mistley had there tails up and were attacking the Harwich line right from the restart and were starting to get a foothold in the game, mainly due to some strong running from there Fijian 12. From a knock on under the Harwich posts, Mistley attacked the Harwich line from the resulting scrum, after a few phases Mistley's 12 would score what would prove to be their only try of the game, with the try converted Harwich now had there lead cut to 3 points,10-7.

Harwich knew they were in a hard game now and upped there efforts. With the loose trio, of Si Palmer, Robert Edgar and David Parkin beginning to control the rucks, Mistley were struggling to gain any go forward ball.

Harwich then completely dominated the last 10 minutes of the half and were constantly attacking. After some inter play between the forwards and backs winger Flook had his brace, after taking the last pass from Edgar who had been involved in everything, he went over to score in a last ditch tackle from the Mistley full-back, with Fox finding his kicking boots the conversion was successful. The halftime score was 17-7,Harwich had done all the hard work by playing up the slope and into the wind and would be hoping to make it count in the second half.

From the restart the Harwich forwards wanted to stamp their authority on the game and went about dismantling the Mistley eight by pushing them off every scrum and disrupting most of their lineouts. With so much possession Harwich would go on to score four more tries in the half. The first going to fly-half Fox who found a gap in Mistley's scrabbling defence to score, try converted 24-7 Harwich.

The next would go to Edgar who would win a lineout five metres out and burst through the Mistley defence, Fox converted for a 31-7 lead to Harwich.
Mistley did manage to halt the scoring briefly and score with two penalties to bring the score to 31-13.

Harwich then scored their try of the game. With a penalty five metres out from the Mistley try line, new captain Josh Leeks called for a scrum and the Harwich eight pushed the Mistley scrum back over their own try-line which allowed Si Palmer to score a pushover try. Try converted 38-13.

With time running out Fox scored one more try out wide, although this conversion was missed Fox would score 23 of Harwich's points. Final score 43-13 to Harwich.

It was an excellent way for Harwich to bounce back after last week's disappointment. Harwich and Mistley now will lock horns again this Saturday in the final of the Suffolk Plate. Harwich will need to refocus themselves and not take Mistley lightly as Mistley have nothing to lose and would love to cause a huge upset.

Report by Shane Manning