Lacklustre Performance by Harborough sees them slide to defeat

Harborough travelled to Belgrave on Saturday and the omens were not good with rain and sleet leaving the pitch far from ideal for Harborough’s style of running rugby and things got worse when their try scoring machine, Ed Parker was injured in the warm

Harborough travelled to Belgrave on Saturday and the omens were not good with rain and sleet leaving the pitch far from ideal for Harborough’s style of running rugby and things got worse when their try scoring machine, Ed Parker was injured in the warm up. They did however start the game well and after Joe Whitworth put in a stunning clearance kick to within 30 metres of the Belgrave line they were on the attack. The line out ball was scrappy from Belgrave and Josh Purnell pounced on the ball and drove forward, quick recycling and powerful running by Jack Digby created good ball that went wide and a slick move by Harris Medwell released Harvey Slade to run through and touch down for a 5-0 lead. Belgrave are however a touch side to beat at home and the conditions suited them as they use their power to create territory and by half-time they had kicked 3 penalties for a 9-5 lead. Harborough did have a chance to kick a penalty of their own but sadly it went wide. Harborough again started strongly in the second half with Purnell and Adam Blatchly combining well and a kick ahead led to another score as Laurence Joel followed up to tackle the receiver and when he lost hold of the ball, Medwell was on hand to pick up and touch down. But Harborough were having an uncharacteristically bad afternoon in the back line as they were constantly caught in possession and rarely was the ball passed without a knock on or dropped pass. They were perhaps justified in believing that Belgrave were closing them down too quickly from an offside position but that does not excuse the lack of discipline or scrappy performance. The Harborough forwards did not back down and the defence was once again solid with Timmy Waterfield once again leading the tackle count preventing Belgrave from scoring a try. They did however have an excellent kicker and his two further successful kicks saw Belgrave run out victors by 15-10. After the game Director of Rugby, David Nance said “we need to put this performance behind us and in many ways it changes very little as to gain promotion we have to beat the teams that are in the promotion battle. The positive from today is the growing strength in depth of the club with 3 senior teams playing in addition to the Colts and the third team, a mixture of Vets and young players, securing a 19-5 victory at Oadby Wyggs.”