Although they had had a dip in form over the last three games, the Owls were back at full strength for the first time in several weeks. With the visit of a team leading the league, Harwich had to be on top form for this match and from the kick off showed they were up for it. Stanford were immediately under pressure from the Owls’ strong running pack and within five minutes, after some quick recycling of the ball in the visitors’ 22 area, Abi Cutts charged over the first try.

The visitors started to exert some pressure on the home 22 but a solid defensive structure and strong tackling soon quashed their attack. The Owls were now forcing Stanford into making mistakes and from a dropped ball, the ball was quickly through the back line to Yas Amber who waltzed past three defenders before sidestepping the fullback to score under the posts.

With Harwich dominating in the scrums and winning most of the lineouts, Stanford were relying on winning some ascendancy at breakdowns. Their attempts were met with strong resistance from the home team and the visitors gave away a series of penalties for infringements in the rucks. From one of these the Owls went through some good phases of play, allowing Mimi Montgomery to dive over the try line for a score.

The powerful running of Cutts, Naomi Dobner and Tasha Bray caused major problems for the Stanford defence and the quick recycling marshalled well by Maisie Green allowed the sniping runs of Montgomery and Annalise Allan to keep the pressure on the visitors who lost their captain for the last ten minutes of the first half for a yellow card offence.
Leading 19 - 0 at halftime the Owls had to resist some initial pressure as Stanford tried to assert some authority on the game but once again the home team absorbed the pressure with some excellent defensive work. Realising their attempts to break through the Owls defensive line were proving unsuccessful the visitors began to move the ball wide but this tactic was also nullified by some good tackling from Lauren Richardson, Beth Flatt and Sophia Tricker.

Harwich began to take control again. A good delayed pass from Montgomery put Allan through a gap in the visitors defence. She broke through a couple of tackles before handing off the last defender as she went over to score. Stanford soon had the home team on the back foot and from a series of rucks were stopped a foot from the home team’s line with some ferocious tackling. This proved to be their last real attempt at scoring as Harwich again demonstrated their attacking qualities. A strong run from the back of a scrum by Tricker set a ruck in the Stanford half. A strong run by Allan saw her tackled inside the Stanford 22 and from her offload, Debbie Lammond showed a great running line and clean pair of heels to the covering defence to score her first ever try.
The Owls kept the pressure on the visiting defence for the remainder of the game without adding to their total of five tries, three of which were converted by Allan
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This was an impressive performance by the Owls whose defensive structure offered little opportunity to a team top of the table.