Tough day at promotion chasing Romford

3 first half tries give Walden hope of an unlikely victory, but they ran out of steam in the second half.

Walden travelled to Romford for the last league game of the season with a depleted squad owing to injuries and illness.
They faced a tough test as the home side needed to win to seal second place and a play off place against the second placed team in the West league to decide who goes up to London N1.
It looked ominous for Walden as Romford were really up for the game and Walden's makeshift defence was exposed scoring 3 well worked tries to go 19 points up after only 14 minutes.
However in the second quarter of the game Walden started to play some good Rugby of their own and after some great phase play captain and fly half Mark Kimberley put Brad Baker playing at Centre for the first time (normally a second row or No8) through to power over the line.
Romford scored their bonus point try and were looking to extend their lead deep inside Walden half when a pass was intercepted by Walden's second row Teddy Hepworth who raced towards halfway. Left winger Paul Marshall was soon on his shoulder and took a simple pass to outpace the defence to score. 26 – 14 after 31 minutes.
At the end of the first half, Walden were once again defending inside their own 22 when this time Marshall read a pass and intercepted to race 80 metres up the field going round under the posts to leave the half time score at 26 – 21.
Romford were probably a bit concerned at this point but managed to get an early score in the second half to extend their lead to 33- 21.
Walden tried in vain to get the Bonus point try and gradually they ran out of steam as the lack of fresh legs began to tell and Romford ran in 3 late tries to rack up the points to seal their play off place.
The Walden 16 can be proud of the way they stuck to the task gaving everything for the team.

A strange league campaign that started so well with 6 wins on the bounce and then as injuries began to bite there were 4 straight defeats before they gradually regrouped to have some fine results in the latter part of the season.
Everyone who pulled on the Green Jersey for either the Firsts or the Saxons can all be commended on the way they have represented the club this year both on and off the field.

The Saxons are at home this Saturday as they play their last league game against Sudbury seconds 3pm kick off.
Then both teams can look forward to the Cambridgeshire Finals day at Henham on the 27th April details to be announced shortly