Watford come out on top in hard fought cup match

Watford had a full squad of 18 available today for this cup match with the welcome return of Yousef, now back from injury and only the two long term injured players Shiloh and Connor still missing. Watford kicked off and started strongly spending the first 10 minutes camped in Hertford’s half of the pitch, but failed to break through Hertford’s strong defence. Then after some good quick rucking in the middle of the field, Mohammed broke away around the outside of the Hertford defence and scored the opening try in the left corner. Hertford came straight back and after some strong breaks by their backs scored in the left corner to tie the game at 5-5. The forwards then started to up their intensity, with some strong runs from the likes of James, Matt and Miles, they all started to maul properly at last with Andrew being driven on over 20 metres in one move. All this work paid off when Shakur went over right under the posts from 10 metres out and Ben added the conversion. Hertford again came straight back and continued to keep the pressure up making Watford work hard in defence, with some good tackling by the centres, wingers and the back row, with Harun (Harry) tackling anything that moved. However right on half time Hertford forced their way through right under the posts and tied the game at 12 each at the break.
The second half started with Ben Sands and Dan on in the front row for Andrew and James who had injured his hand just before the break. Watford started strongly and with the scrum looking solid, allowing the half backs John and Ben to get the centres moving forward into space. This forced Hertford to start kicking more to relieve the pressure, but Jordan and the wingers positioned themselves well to catch the ball and run it straight back at them. Also the forwards started to make some good runs with the ball in hand, with Louie making 40 yards on one drive and Ike running a tap penalty from one 22 to the other (we must have the fastest second row in the league). All this good work finally paid off with a series of drives from the forwards finishing with Mohammed diving over for his second try and Ben converting for a 19-12 lead. The two Oliver’s were swapped over on the left wing, with Ollie N coming off injured after making some big tackles, and Ollie D getting involved straight away. Then James (Smithy) burst through the line after some more excellent rucking by the forwards, he rounded the last two defenders and scored a great try to stretch the lead.
Watford finished the stronger with two more tries by Shakur to give him a hatrick, one being a 90 yard run from near his own try line. The final score was 36-12, but it was a lot closer than this suggests with Hertford more than playing their part in a good competitive cup tie.
The boys played well with some good individual performances, but more pleasing for the coaches was the fact that they played a lot more like a team today. Captain for the day Ike lead by example with some barnstorming runs, the backs looked dangerous the whole game scoring all of the six tries. However all of the forwards and John worked really hard to secure the majority of the possession for Watford, remember it's ‘The forwards that win the match, but the backs decide by how much’. The boys voted Ben Stevens man of the match for a good all round performance, although his Coke hair wash tactics didn’t go down too well with the bar staff!