After 3 comfortable wins where Saffron Walden had scored over 200 points it was good to see that Walden could also put in a gritty performance and still come out with a win against a side that had scored 70 points against them at the tail end of last season.
The weather was mostly dry but a fair amount of overnight rain meant the conditions were far from perfect with the ball getting greasy every time it touched the ground, it was not a day suited to Waldens natural style of rugby.
Enfield kicked off and played the first 5 mins of the game in Walden's half and took the ball into the home teams 22 and when Walden strayed offside at a ruck they proceeded to put the first points on the board from the resultant penalty. 0-3.
However almost straight from the restart Walden won the ball back and after a couple of phases the centres broke through the Enfield defensive line and passed to flanker Eddie Brown who raced clear and with the full back to beat threw a fine pass out to left winger Ben Stapleton who raced round under the posts for a converted try. 7-3 8 mins.
A few minutes later Walden won a penalty on half way and Ton Hughes kicked long and put the ball deep into the Enfield 22. A perfect line out set up a driving maul that was unstoppable and No 8 Tom Read got the ball down as the pack drove over the line. Fullback Tom Price kicked a fine conversion from wide out. 14-3 12mins.
Perhaps a combination of some determined play by the visitors and Walden thinking the game was falling into the pattern of recent matches where scoring had become too easy but the next 20 mins belonged to Enfield and they scored 2 tries. The first coming when after several drives by the forwards the ball was fed out to the fly half and the right winger came into the line at pace and broke through to go under the posts. 14 - 10 after 25 mins.
Then 6 mins later Enfield scored off their own driving maul from a 5 mtr attacking line out and they nudged into the lead 14 – 15 on the half hour mark.
Walden regrouped and regained the lead scoring 2 penalties in the last 10 mins of the half the first when Enfield were caught with hands in the ruck and the second just before half time when they were penalised for not releasing the ball leaving the half time the score at 20 – 15.
If you just judged the second half by the score sheet it would look a dour affair with the both teams only managing a penalty each, but this would betray the commitment put in by both sides and the tense situation as both teams could sense a victory.
Enfield scored first as Walden were penalised for going over the top and that narrowed the gap to 20 -18 after 52 mins.
As mentioned with only a penalty in it the game might have gone either way but to Waldens credit they cut out the mistakes and their defence started putting in a good perfomance that denied Enfield any further meaningful opportunities. They nearly got another try when after the forwards were camped on the visitors line for 5 mins but could not quite get over. However when the ball was cleared it went into Ben Stapletons hands and he ran diagonally from left to right and nearly set up right winger Harry Beddows but the ball was forced out just a few metres out.
Some good defence by Enfield stopped Walden from building the phases and it looked like the score would remain at 20 -18 but with 1 minute to go Enfield understandably tried to turn the ball over from a ruck but were caught using their hands and Tom Price took his time to run the clock down kicking a fine long range penalty and the final whistle blew 23 -18.
Not a pretty game but intriguing to watch as both teams fought hard for the win and Walden probably just deserved to edge it with a fine defensive performance especially in the second half.
They now need to regroup as they prepare to travel down to West London to play Old Priorians who are flying high in the NW2 division in the 2nd round of the National Cup.