On a cold winters day at the Lane, another bumper crowd bolstered by the Former Players Association, after a good solid lunch time session, greeted both teams onto the pitch. They were not disappointed - A fast start from Havant highlighted some great attacking play and eventually after concerted phase play in the red zone saw our pressure win a penalty, converted by Joel. This was followed by more of the same pace and intensity, eventually seeing Dylan Read race away to the corner to the first try of the game, the conversion was missed (8-0). Henley seemed a little stunned by the start of proceedings.
After 10 mins it was clear Henley were still struggling to get out of their half as Havant maintained their momentum, pressing hard and winning another penalty, Joel Knight slotting the kick, (11-0). But it was clear that Henley had clearly got some pace and power on the park, they just needed to get it into action and as the game evolved it slowly started to have an influence on the outcome.... and as the first period progressed, so Henley slowly started to generate more coherency of play, developing some nice handling interplay while looking to stretch our defences out wide. Happily our defence remained solid, but it was a definitive marker that the opposition could present a real threat that was going to need to be managed.
​​ The half continued ... but as with all games in this league, if you start to switch off or begin to relax - you will get punished, and this was no different. No sooner had we restarted after our converted penalty kick, Henley were attacking deep in our own half, applying real pressure in our Red Zone. While the defence held, it wasn't long before their increased attacking flow started to generate some real space, and our defence was being stretched. Henley finally managed to wear us down and subsequently get over for their first try (11-7).
As the first half progressed, so it became clear that Henley were now becoming the more dominant attacking force, our own 'go forward' posture had diminished, somewhat impacted by the loss of dylan read to injury, but it was mainly Henley kicking into gear that was the problem. They were now developing solid phase plays, recycling well and shipping the ball quickly to the edges, looking to attack any gaps we left. In a similar manner as the pressure was being applied, so we were probably guilty of succumbing to the more technical type infringements, as the ref seemed to be constantly blowing for penalties against us and marching us back into our own half - it was clear, if we had had an early Purple Patch.. well that was now over and Henley were clearly starting to get the upper hand and dominate the balance of play.
Almost on cue, 28' mins in, with loose play in the middle of the park, the Henley Centre collected the ball and made a nice solo break, jinking through our defence only to find he had actually run away from his own support too, ... whereupon, committed to going it alone - he did .. subsequently beating our last remaining defender to the line and scoring a nice try. While this was a quality try, I sense it was probably also helped by some less than adequate tackling when we had the chance to stop him - with the conversion, Henley took the lead (11-14) and as the score suggests, finished the first half the more dominant side.

Halftime: HRFC 11 Henley Hawks 14

While clearly still in touch with Henley at 11-14 down, after the restart Havant were soon put under some early pressure with Henley camped in our Red Zone. Good solid gritty chop tackle defence killed a number of attacks, but the Ref felt we were still infringing and following a Yellow card (Ben Holt), Henley quickly exploited the extra man and their backrow (7) crossed the line out wide. The conversion was subsequently missed (11-19). Still in touch, but now playing with a man down ... and mindful that we needed to tighten up!
Happily, with memories of Bury probably still fresh in our minds, the next period was largely well managed, both in attack and defence, although Henley did break through requiring a good cover tackle by Jack Phillips to stop a dead cert try. The subsequent follow-on play did allow us to regain field position and after some solid exit work we won a penalty, enabling a kick to the corner before delivering a well-executed lineout, where the ensuing contest/grappling match had numerous sub-plots.. but eventually Archie Cleeve drove over for the try with some help from the posse. Joel Knight provided the extras with the conversion and we were back at a one point game 18-19. (54')
From the restart and somewhat reinvigorated from the successful score, we were able to collect and establish field position again, exerting more pressure on the Henley defence, before finally winning another penalty (60') for our efforts. Again kicking to the corner, we positioned ourselves some 15m out, presumably ready for a successful lineout catch and drive but after a competed period of close-quarter phase play, we finally shifted the ball to the backs whereupon Jacob Knight put in a well-aimed cross-field kick to our very own 'Windandsurf Images' Sponsored Player (Harry Carr), who skillfully scooped up the ball while fighting his way passed his man to get over the line for the Havant try. Although out wide and on the touchline, this was then nonchalantly converted by Joel (25-19), who was striking the ball so cleanly throughout the day. The Home Crowd were now becoming noisy and had clearly started to believe we could take this game.
Min 68' and another Henley infringement gives us yet another kickable Penalty opportunity, with Joel Knight making no mistake from just outside the Henley 22m - extending the lead to a two score margin. (28-19). The balance of play had swung to our favour - and this lead would normally be sufficient for a team to relax a bit, but Henley were still very much in the game and alive to their chances and if anything we continued to feel under pressure. As had been demonstrated much of the afternoon, we were up against a mature side with some clever attacking talent in their backline, and not withstanding now being behind again... with the clock running away, Henley set about generating good solid phased approach work before patiently crafting a good score scoring opportunity to put their wing over in the corner - thankfully for the home crowd emotions, they missed the conversion (28-24) on 74' mins ...we still had our lead but a nail biting last few moments of play to endure.
At this point the flow of the game definitely seemed to switch again ...and after the restart Henley now in the ascendency, began exerting more pressure as they firmly camped inside our Red zone. Hats off to the Havant boys, who once again bravely defended every phase of attack close to the line, real gritty defence with bodies being put firmly on the line...Indeed this type of defensive set would normally have been highlighted in any post match report as the key match winning accolade, however it was obviously not be this time! Following an infringement at the 5m lineout, Havant were awarded another yellow card (Ross Parkins) and once again Henley set about exploiting our defence, attacking the line and then stretching the ball wide, inevitably giving us too much of a challenge to handle that close to the line - the Henley try was finally scored in the corner by their winger, again the conversion was missed. 28-29 (80').
Henley now had the lead, but we still had the all important Losing Bonus Point ...and the clock was passed the 80' with just some minor stoppages to play.
Now we've obviously been here before this season (most recently at Barnes), where the response to suddenly going behind just as the clock is counting down is totally instinctive - obviously there's a desire to get the ball back in play quickly, win the restart and play the ball into their half using attacking pace and flair to regain the lead - or at least that's the theoretical plan. Perhaps we now need to be more strategic in our tactical time management at this point - when we're under pressure to push the ball around quickly, mistakes will undoubtedly happen - in this case we did restart, they collected and box-kicked back into our half, we collected safely and responded by trying to generate an attacking situation... but our attack faltered and we ended up spilling the ball in contact, only to present an opportunity for the Henley backs to attack our disheveled defence and the mis-match in front of them (scrambling players trying to re-establish a coherent defensive posture), and once they had got through the half-tackle of the scrambled defence, the Henley centre scooted away down the field finally linking up with their 17 year old youngster (9) who scored under the posts (28-36). The end result - regrettably a definitive League loss ...and no Losing Bonus Point.

Full-time Havant 28 Henley Hawks 36

Head coachWill Knight's thoughts after the game
"I know how much that hurt for the players. We let them off the hook, we had control of the game with 10 to go and let them take away even the losing bonus point. We did not really function today and will take a long hard look at the analysis to understand where we need to change things. Oxford next week becomes a very important game."