Herts/Middlesex League 1

It included six second-team players.

In a closely fought game Hendon made the better start with their forwards able to make good inroads.

This lead to lock Aiden Doyle bustling over for a try with the conversion missed by Hadley.

Shortly after this indiscipline cost Hendon as a sin bin for their prop left them a man short for 10 minutes.

This advantage resulted in 2 penalties for the home side, but they only converted one.

Hendon thought they had weathered the storm but, just before half time, a string of penalties resulted in Old Hamptonians gaining good field position from which they were able to create one of their very few scoring opportunities, and a converted try. This left the half time score as 10-5.

Into the second half and it was pretty even stuff. The home side had a number of penalties given against them in a short space of time, from which they had a man sent to the bin.

Hendon applied a lot of pressure with the man advantage but were only able to add three points to their tally to close within two.

A couple of penalties from the home side left the score at 16-8 with less than 10 minutes to go.

The Hendon pack stepped up the pressure in search of a way back into the game.

From the pressure winger Kola was able to kick through and was about to touch down when he was taken out off the ball. A penalty try was awarded and converted to leave Hendon trailing by a point with a few minutes to go.

From the kick off Hendon were pinned back but began to use the pack to make ground up field. However, the lack of experience and tiredness told as a knock on gave the ball back to OH.

With a couple of minutes to go OH were camped on the Hendon line and some cynical defending saw Connelly sent to the bin.

With the extra man the home side created an overlap to score in the corner with the last play of the game.

The conversion was made, robbing Hendon of a losing bonus point, which was the very least they deserved.