Return to Watford reaps rewards

And so it transpired, with an excellent first half in Watford, followed by a tough second half when Watford stormed back into the game, and some of the previous precision fell away from Bracknell’s game.

With a late switch (again because of the rain) from home to away, there were several changes to the team, with some players playing in different positions for the greater cause. But anyone watching the first half display would never have realised it, with an exciting display of all-round, front foot rugby that had, at times, Watford wondering where the next attack was coming from.

With the forwards providing excellent ball, the half-backs, Joe and Tim this week, made light work of the positional changes bringing the new (renewed?) centre partnership of Alex and Kai, into the game very quickly with both making some excellent ground forward. It was one such burst from Kai, deep into Watford territory that led to the first try, as when he was finally brought down, the forwards arrived en force and drives from Lewis and Ed, ground closer to the line before Charlie dived over the line for his first try for the club.

Watford levelled shortly afterwards with a strong burst down their left flank, but thereafter most of the first period belonged to Bracknell, who added another 3 tries. All strangely, scored in the same left hand corner. Fraser, Lewis and Joe all had decent efforts to convert, but even with the wind, could not manage to further to scores.

The second try was a fine move with good scrum ball, Joe fed Tim, running down the left hand narrow side, who then neatly shipped it out to Zach, who swerved outside then inside a couple of defenders for a fine finish. Then followed one of the moments of the match; from the resulting kick-off, Ed gathered the high ball and proceeded to side-step, swerve and sway all the way to the cusp of the try-line, where a cracking tackle denied him the final glory. Oakley instead, scored it for him.

The final score of the dominant first half came, when, after more pressure, Ryan picked up from the base of the scrum and forced his way over – and with the whistle quickly following, Bracknell were deservedly 20-5 up at the break.

With warnings, not to let the intensity slip, the boys started off the second half with a bang, and almost from the kick off, Theo brushed off several tackles on one of his trademark runs through the middle of the pitch and scored under the posts. Fresh from a pitch-side anecdote, Lewis grabbed the ball, and drop kicked the conversion whilst no-one was watching. 27-5 up. Then the intensity slipped.

To be fair, it is probably the intensity of the host team that increased, and they started attacking Bracknell at the breakdown and driving up the middle of the pitch with some strong runners. The result was, that in a scrappy, physical second half, Bracknell were unable to win any decent ball, starving the backs almost completely whilst relying on the odd forward drive, from the likes of Toby, Fraser and Sam, to earn periods of respite from the aggressive Watford pack.

In the event, with Bracknell unable to build any momentum into their game, Watford pulled back three unconverted tries for a final tally of 27-20, not dis-similar in score or nature to the previous meeting between the teams (although considerably better weather this time).