Some crucial errors had allowed Loughborough back into the game but Harrogate continued to compete strongly and the final score was not an accurate reflection of a very close match.

From the kick-off, the home pack put in a long driving maul to take play well into the students’ half and set up repeated attacks. Loughborough went offside and an Ali Chalmers penalty gave Harrogate a 3 point lead. The attacking pattern continued with forward dominance creating good ball which was well orchestrated by half backs Tom Bugge and Kyle Dench.

Harrogate then went offside and Loughborough’s George Drake equalised. Still more Harrogate attacks followed but an attacking penalty opportunity was wasted when touch was missed.

Debutant flanker, Kerry Wood made an excellent start to his Harrogate career and combined well with the powerful young No8, Alex Rieder Harrogate continued to exert pressure through forward dominance, forcing Lougborough into offside offences and 2 more Chalmers kicks made it 9-3 at half time.

The pattern continued after the interval and a further Chalmers penalty extended the lead but Lougborough countered and a clever Drake chip was seized on by Craig Holland who scored in the corner. Drake’s conversion made it 12-10 which soon became 12-13 when Harrogate went offside and Drake kicked a further 3 points.

Harrogate then wasted a chance to go back ahead after they’d been awarded a penalty for a Loughborough offside offence. Repeated “verbals” to the referee led to the penalty being reversed and Loughborough were coming more and more into the game. The student’ U21 International second row, Charlie Matthews, burst through Harrogate’s midfield to score a converted try. Harrogate continued to take the game to the students but Loughborough extended their lead through some brilliant individual wing play by Holland. He ran strongly out of defence and some slick inter-passing led to him scoring another converted try in the corner.

Back came Harrogate and, from good ball, space was created for Ed Smithies to score. Finally, another attempted attack from defence was countered by the tall Matthews plucking a Harrogate miss-pass out of the air and charging through to score his second try

Harrogate: Smithies, Chalmers, Bottomley, Broadley, Almond (Carmichael 70), Dench, Bugge (Wickham 62), Browne, Maycock, Fraser (Watt 62), Brady, Lodge, Harland (Enston 22), Rieder.

Loughborough: Mama, Holland, Rolston, Simpson, Wilson, Drake, Weir, Allan, Hobbs, Parili, Warden, Matthews, Waddingham, Everard, McFarland

Referee: Tom Davis (RFU)

Match Report by Bill Barrack
Photos by David Aspinall