Taff Llewellyn Memorial Match

St Albans RFC 3rds played a friendly against a well drilled Hatfield QEII side who look to be growing into a great rugby team. 3rd XV Captain Mark Prangnell looked on from the sidelines, injured. From the off HQE2 set about running hard and swamping the 3rds with constant attacks. They scored two good tries from this endeavour. Sadly Ed Coy was injured in one of these attacks and had to leave the field of play. The 3rds finally woke up and applied some pressure of their own and living off of pick and go's scored through Christopher Green, son of legendary St Albans RFC Herts County prop, Brent Green, with Stilly slotting the extras. HQE2 were to get a third before a through the hands move saw Fraser Morris (normally a prop, but this day outside centre) get his first of the day. Stilly slotted this as well. Unfortunately in trying to stop a HQE2 score, he was then shown a yellow by the ref, who then awarded a penalty try. Down to 14, against a 1st XV, other teams may have crumbled, but the 3rds showed good composure and stuck to their guns. Then we lost our inside centre, Mad Ian! Hatfield generously lent us a young player who had been a wrecking ball against us in the first half and we were still in it even with a beardy 48 year old Mick O'Shea on the wing!
Hatfield used their big runners and especially their electric no.10 to further increase their lead, even getting a rolling maul over the line from the 22 to score. Then we lost Paul Randall! Undeterred and with Stilly back on at fly half, Jonathan Constantinou made a break from the back of the scrum and bursting through tackles scored a great individual try. Fraser got the second of his tries from more pick and go pressure. Stilly converting both.
Cheers to Hatfield QEII for a great game and for lending us the players!
Final score:
St Albans 3rds 28 - 47 HQE2

For a scratch team we did very well to hold our form throughout. Hatfield scored some great tries which is nothing to ashamed of. Losing 3 backs doesn't help either but everyone came off having played in a contested game against the strongest opponents we may have this season, so well done us!
3XV team sheet 07/09/19
1/Adam Power
2/Brendan O'Conchuir C
3/Lucas Garside
4/Russell Evans
5/Mick O'Shea
6/Michael Duppa Miller
7/Chris Green
8/Jonathan Constantinou
9/Stilly
10/Paul Randall
11/Kevin Mitchell
12/Mad Ian
13/Fraser Morris
14/Keygan
15/Doddsie
16/Gideon

St Albans RFC 3rds and Hatfield QE2 held a minutes silence before the game, a fitting reminder for Taff Llewellyn, an all round great from Hatfield Rugby.