Sunday saw Harrow kick off the 2016/17 season with a ‘friendly’ visit to local rivals Ruislip.
Having agreed on three 22 minute sessions to enable rotation, Harrow kicked off against a strong Ruislip team and immediately made progress into Ruislip’s 22 through a back row of Rory, Ash and David setting the tone with some strong driving play. Ruislip were unable to withstand the pressure and conceded a penalty just to the left of the posts and outside the 22 which Callum Manning struck sweetly through the uprights to put Harrow 3-0 up.
Ruislip responded immediately, and some driving rucks close to Harrows line resulted in Ruislip crossing for a try which was unconverted, and the rest of the session was closely contested with neither side able to convert any pressure into points and Harrow turned around 5-3 down.
The middle session was by far Harrows most impressive, despite conceding an early try to go 10-3 behind, Harrow began building on a strong base in the scrum in which the front 3 of Cameron, David and Michael were imperious all morning, Harrow looked to move the ball at every opportunity, and although sometimes a little bit lateral in the movement, they still had enough pace and skill to open up Ruislip like an over ripe tomato.
The first of 4 tries was scored by Will Stephenson, benefitting from an excellent break from Daniel , and some good hands from centre Oliver Rice putting Will away in the right hand corner – Callum converted and Harrow were back level at 10 all.
Another foray into the Ruslip half saw Callum break through, and some excellent support from Andrew Powell saw him again glide over for another score, which although not converted put Harrow 15-10 in front.
Two more outstanding tries from Callum and Jacob, which were both converted put Harrow even further ahead, and with a lead of 29-10 going into the final session Harrow were confident, but also fully aware that Ruislip would ‘roll’ the bench – and with a new 15 players with the luxury of fresh legs against a Harrow 15 which had already endured a heat sapping 45 minutes the final session proved to be just beyonmg Harrow maintaining the lead.
Ruislip resorted to a basic game plan of hitting around the fringes, and then looking to release their quick back three at every opportunity. 24 unanswered points – the last of which was a try in the final play of the game - gave Ruislip a victory across the sessions of 34 points to 29, which whilst disappointing had some excellent positives for Harrow as a team.

What went well ? – scrums and particularly the front 3 were outstanding, line-outs functioned well despite not a great deal of practice at training to date, mobility and aggression in the back row and handling and support play across the backs was also a positive.
Areas to improve ? – defence around the breakdown – nobody will make ground if you tackle around the legs and take contact on your terms, lines of running in the backs need to be sharper and more varied, crash balls are good but if we can also offload out/before the tackle we have the opportunity to make more ground.

Overall a positive start, and clear improvement areas to work on at training on Thursday evenings.
Many thanks to all who also came to support – always appreciated.