Walden Win!

A great attacking performance give Walden their first win of the Season.

Walden finally got their season up and running with a fine home win against Watford based Fullerians rfc who were sitting 6th in the league.
Walden finally had what looked like a full squad to pick from, following on from a good performance the previous week they hit the ground running and from the first whistle looked determined to play expansive running rugby that the supporting VP's love to watch.
The first try came after a dominant 7 minutes when after several phases Walden exploited an overlap and right wing Ollie Webber found enough space to go over in the corner running round to make the conversion easier for full back Tom Price.
Then almost straight from the restart Walden regained possession drove up the centre and 2nd row Matt Holden made a clean break and ran deep into the visitors half before off loading to centre Adam Miles who went under the posts. 14 – 0, 9 mins.
This great spell of play was capped off 10 mins later when the ball was worked across the field to fly half Tom Hughes, sensing the space on the left he chipped ahead and left wing Paul Marshall ran round his opposite number take the ball without breaking stride, with just the full back to beat he flicked a neat pass to centre Mark Kimberley who cantered over the line and under the posts to put Walden 19 points up.
However Fullerians got back into the game with 2 tries of their own before half time utilising their strong pack first for a catch and drive from a 5 metre line out and then a quick pass off a close range scrum to narrow the gap to 19 -12 at the break.
Walden started the 2nd half strongly and gained a penalty as Fullerians were caught offside extending the lead to 22 – 12 44th minute.
Fullerians were forced to concede several penalties close to their try line, the Ref lost patience and sin binned one of the players.
Walden capitalised and Ollie Webber scored his second try 5 mins later and flanker Ben Stapleton was on hand to score another from close range and Walden looked to have sealed the game with a 34 – 12 advantage after 55 mins.
But once again Fullerians dug deep and restored to full strength scored 2 tries of their own during the next 10 minute period to not only gain the bonus point for 4 tries but also narrowing the gap to 34 -22 with still 10 mins to play.
The visitors attacked again and some valiant defence kept them out but the final outcome was settled when they spun the ball wide 20 metres out and it looked like they might score again to get within striking distance of taking the victory. However winger and man of the match Paul Marshall read the final pass, intercepted the ball and used his pace to run the length of the field to put the game safe at 41 - 22 with only a few minutes to play.
A fine performance from 1 -18 and one that should help get some confidence back, but they know they will have to work hard to make sure that this can be repeated in the weeks to follow.
We are always on the look out for new players to play either in the first team in London N1 or the Saxons (2nd team) in Eastern Counties 1West, if you are interested in joining our friendly club please contact either info@swrfc.co.uk or graham.marshall2@ntlworld.com