Friendly North London Cup
St Albans 16 Hemel Stags 44
Hemel Stags continued their preseason build up to the RLCN season with a convincing win over local rivals St Albans on Sunday.
After last weeks victory over Scottish exiles it was another opportunity for Head Coach Troy Perkins to see his new recruits and younger membres of the squad against against an experienced and determined St Albans outfit. Bot team had squad of twenty and the match was beneficial for both teams as they build up to their first competition game in their respective leagues in three weeks time.
The game was played in 4 x 20 minute quarters, with ex international referee John Connelly keeping a firm grip on this local derby. Hemel Stags started well scoring a try within the first five minutes and although St Albans hit back with a try soon after and the game was tight up until halftime when the score was 18- 10 in favour of the Stags. The second half was domintated by Hemel and even after some reshuffling of the backline due to injuries to half back Robbie Witt and standoff Blake Kirby and being down to twelve men for the last thirty minutes didnt effect the team as they ran out 44-16 winners.
After the game Head Coach Troy Perkins was upbeat about the performance " I was pretty impressed with most of our players today and we are moving in the right direction. There is still alot of things we need to cover at training and spend time on but we have the foundations of a decent team. The players we have recruited from Australia have all played well in their first two games and new recruits such as Ben Joyce from London Skolars and Jamie Goss from Bedford have given us such more size in the pack too. BJ Swindells and Gareth Swindells were both outstanding today in attack and defence and some of our younger players in George Stevens, Jamie Acton and big Erick Grimley showed that they will be pushing for first team selection for the first competition game. We now have the Easter weekend off before we take on Hammersmith before the season commences the following weekend against last seasons RLCN champions Bramley Buffaloes.
Tries:
Goals:
Hemel Man of the Match:
Hemels Payers Player Award: