Hanwell Remain Without Loss

Hanwell RFC beat Whitton Lions away

Hanwell travelled to friends and rivals, Whitton Lions, for the second friendly of what will no doubt be many this season.

The game was an early kick off due to the England International and was contested by two teams very different from the league encounter a few weeks back.
Both sides were experimenting with new players, players in new positions and in Hanwell's case, Mitchel Thorpe making his return from two broken vertebrae suffered during a pre-season friendly.
 
Unusually for the visitors, it was Hanwell who got off to the better start. Keeping the ball tight in wet, muddy conditions that made handling difficult.
It didn't take long for the deadlock to be broken, with the ball moving through the hands to centre Kenny Hassan, who broke a couple of tackles to score. The extras were added by Kevin Falvey to give Hanwell a 0-7 lead.
 
Hanwell had a definite upper hand in the scrum, an area boosted by the front row debut of Jack Ryan at prop. It was from a stolen Whitton scrum that the Hanwell once again started to put numerous phases together.
Eventually the ball came to Kevin Falvey on the Hanwell ten metres line. The number 9 opted to kick over the Lions' defensive line and the chase was on.
 
The Whitton fullback allowed the ball to bounce and it fell kindly to Hanwell's hooker John Bodman, who ran deep into the home 22 before offloading in the tackle to flanker Jon Atkins for a simple try.
A difficult conversion was missed, giving Hanwell a 0-12 lead.
 
Another set of forward phases gave Hanwell yet another platform to release their backs at the home side's line and Paul Doherty eventually made a break and grounded the ball over the Whitton try line. However, the referee had spotted an offence and rather than giving the try to Doherty, a penalty try under the posts was awarded.
With an easy conversion scored, the lead was extended to 0-19.
 
Whitton eventually hit back with the visitor's discipline costing them by giving a penalty on the 5 metre line. The tap penalty was duly taken and one of the Lions' big hitters crashed over the line to make the half time scores Whitton 5 - Hanwell 19.
 
The second half began with Hanwell once again on the attack. Starting with a run by flanker Phillip Nolan - crashing his way through multiple tackles to set up another excellent break from Paul Doherty. Doherty managed to offload in the tackle to Bodman, who again managed to offload, this time to Kenny Hassan to run in his second try of the game to make the scores 5-24 to the visitors.
 
The final say of the game went to the home side. After some incredible defence by the visitors - including three try saving tackles in a row, their try line was breached with a good sweeping move from a tap penalty was scored in the corner. A good conversion was scored to end the game Whitton 12 - Hanwell 24.
 
MOTM - Jon Atkins & Harrison Synnott.
Hanwell debut - Dan Whittall

18th November 2014