Captain Chris West's comment. that his team became tired in the second half, did, to an extent, explain the drop in performance; but it also underlined the fact that, this season, a greater level of fitness is required. Back to the hard yards in training!

Weakened by being without Mike Smith and, very significantly, Rob Franklin, Harrow still had a strong enough team on the park to instill confidence. They were able to withstand a strong opening onslaught from the big home pack who had the benefit of a strong wind in the first period.

The well-organised defence held out until 15 mins when Maidstone crossed for a well converted try.

Harrow then fought back and established good position in the home 22 and, despite having little line out ball, put the hosts under pressure, rewarded when Robert Baragwanath crossed for an unconverted try.

The hosts were then stunned when Gary Conroy and Chris West combined to put the captain in under the posts with Christian Whitney adding the conversion to put Harrow 12-7 up.

Unbeaten in all competitions this season, Maidstone were clearly unsettled by the score line, and a physical game became fractious as their frustration increased. Just before half time, this boiled over, seeing them lose a forward to the sin bin, accompanied by Dave West. The last action of the half saw Christian Whitney add a long range penalty to extend Harrow's lead to 15-7.

Whatever happened in the half time huddles changed the game.

Maidstone came out a different team - reorganised in the pack and determined to take the game to Harrow.

Harrow came out a different team, too - half asleep!

The next 30 mins were unremitted misery for Harrow.

Missed first tackles, dropped passes and little, if any, line out ball led to Maidstone taking complete control, adding three tries and three penalties without reply.

In the last 10 mins, with the game lost, Harrow did show pride in improving their performance, and a great break from Chris West, supported by Ryan Owens, seemed certain to bring a try, before a Maidstone forward came from the wrong side of a ruck to tackle the Harrow man in possession in the act of scoring, and so preventing the touch down. Clearly offside, he was sin binned but, inexplicably, the referee failed to award the obvious penalty try.

After then, Harrow did not threaten again and, in truth, at the final whistle, after a shambles of a second half, were fortunate not to have suffered a more sizeable defeat than the final score of 15 - 31.

Regrouping needed for the return to League action next Saturday with the visit to Tabard.

JOHN CHURCH

The Lions meanwhile continued their excellent unbeaten run in the merit table with a hard won 12-10 win against St Albans 2nds in a rearranged fixture from last Saturday after the Hertfordshire side were unable to raise a side.

This win puts the Lions on 35 points four ahead of four teams at the top of the Herts/Middx Merit table 3 including Hitchin 2nds who we host next week.

Match report by Hywel Gosling is on the website

Andrew Smart