Halstead Templars travelled to the newly formed Kelvedon & Feering rugby club for the second of their pre-season friendlies. They welcomed back Nick Murray and Matt Harwood for the fixture which would be their first and last of the season as work and studies will take them away before the league kicks off. The sides had decided to play 4 x 20-minute quarters and, in a quirk of delivery drivers and missed sales orders, every try would be worth 7 because the home side’s goal posts had yet to arrive.

The game started off brightly with Halstead happy to show their coach that the tackling training had paid off with players putting in a solid defensive performance, however, the initial exchanges took an early toll on unfit legs and K&F moved up the field moving the ball from left to right. Dale Brooks and Tom Ranson, who had good performances on the wings, were faced with two and sometimes three players attacking their flanks and only the excellent covering of Jon McKechnie at full back prevented an early score. But not for long and K&F took the lead crossing in the right corner.

The scrums and lineouts from the Templars were a masterclass and not just because they had borrowed two of K&F’s spare front row. Adi Illingworth and Marty Smith connected time after time in the lineout and such was his ariel presence that K&F would often clear the lineout entirely on their own throw allowing Oli Cuthbert or Harwood to charge onto the lose ball and into their approaching back line.

However, it was from the first scrum that the next score came. Halstead drove powerfully into and through the home sides pack stealing the ball against the head. Alex Howard, one of only two backs to retain his position after the Harwich friendly, found Josh Donaldson at flyhalf who kicked clear. The chasing backs put the pressure on the K&F fullback who knocked on but was the quickest to react when the whistle didn’t go. With the Halstead defensive line in disarray, K&F tore through the remaining defenders to score their second.

Donaldson’s restart went straight out, but K&F sportingly proposed that they take it again and this time he left a high hanging kick for his pack to chase. Again they charged into the K&F team whose handling looked a little suspect more than once. Man-of-the-match Ben Bird put in tackle after tackle and then secured the turnover at the ruck forcing the penalty. The ball was shipped quickly to Bird’s second row partner Ben Harfield and from close range, but still with plenty of defensive attention, he dived over for Halstead’s first score.

Halstead knew they had the beating of K&F if they could get a series of phases together and keep their discipline, sadly neither aspect was going their way. They believed they had scored a second when a move up the left wing between Smith and Brooks saw a foot race for the ball just short of the tryline which Howard won, only to find that on a warm summer’s day you can’t slide over from 5 yards out and so was well short and in fact it was K&F crossed the tryline twice more in the half, fortunately for the visitors one of those was a missed opportunity as the flanker ran well out of the deadball line before he realised where he was! The score at halftime was 15(21)-5(7).

Halstead had a talking to at halftime highlighting what they must and absolutely must not do in the second half. They brought on Murray for Ranson allowing Howard to continue to operate at scrumhalf, a role he is becoming more and more proficient in with every passing training session.

K&F continued to employ the same tactics as in the first half, several phases straight up the middle drawing in Halstead’s defence before trying to go wide. Again and again the tackles were made, the breakaway didn’t appear, but the hosts moved ever further down the field. When the turnovers came Halstead looked threatening with Donaldson either kicking with the wind for his wingers to chase or spreading the ball wide for Marcel Du Toit standing at outside centre to race through the defending lines, however that killer blow wouldn’t come and instead the hosts scored three more, fortunately for the visitors one of those was a missed opportunity as the prop grounded the ball on the 5-meter line thinking it was the tryline, he did score the second, making no mistake as he barrelled through the men in black, and the final K&F try came from a wonderful flowing move up Halstead’s right flank, with the finishing touch coming from a neat inside step to accelerate away from McKechnie and Du Toit’s attempts.

The Templars did get a score in the second half, K&F tried to repeat the move up the right flank but Murray was ready for them and, in an attempt to keep the ball alive, the winger threw a speculative pass back infield which was gathered off the ground by Ed Merry who handed off the covering defender before racing away down field to score. Brooks looked favourite to get the last score of the game, from the last play of the game, as Halstead moved right to left with four men against one, only for Ranson, who was back on in the second row unable to get the scoring pass away before the one defender brought him down. The final score 25(35)-10(14).

Illingworth said at the end, that it was a game of two halves in that Halstead were either really good, solid in defence and threatening in attack, or really poor, allowing frustration to get the better of their discipline, falling off simple tackles or making poor decisions such as kicking the ball when a simple pass would have been better. The league kicks off for the Templars on the 25th when they host Woodbridge 2nd XV, they will hope to have had better preparation and a more complete squad to choose from than they have had to contend with over this last month.