On a sunny but windy afternoon at Legend Lane, second placed Brentwood faced a potentially difficult game against a Letchworth side determined to pick up points and improve on their 11th position in the league.

Straight from the kick off, Brentwood’s talismanic hooker Louis Payne had to be taken off with a shoulder injury after a heavy challenge and was replaced by Jack Richards.

Playing with the strong wind in their backs, Brentwood piled on the early pressure but failed to score. Their closest moment came when Josh Stannard powered over the Letchworth line but the referee judged that the ball was held up by a determined Letchworth defender.
With cohesive play proving difficult for both sides in the strong wind, a flash of brilliance from scrum half Tom Simpson after 15 minutes saw him dance through several Letchworth tackles to feed number eight James Vogel who touched down for the first Brentwood try of the match. Full back Henry Bird converted to make the score 0-7.

After the opening score, play continued in the previous staccato manner for the remainder of the first half with little cohesive play to warm the crowd on an increasingly cold afternoon. On the stroke of half time, a good positional kick from Charlie Chambers forced a penalty against the determined Letchworth defence. Up stepped Henry Bird to score from 40 yards with a fine kick. This was the last play of a largely disappointing first half, with the 0-10 score reflecting Brentwood’s overall domination of possession.

Letchworth kicked off the second half with the strengthening wind in their favour. Whatever Director of Rugby Steve Killington said to his players in his half time talk, Brentwood started with much more energy and determination. Their early pressure led to two penalties and from the second of these, a well worked five metre line out saw flanker Ben Amato score his side’s second try after six minutes of play. Bird’s conversion attempt slid wide of the posts and the score moved on to 0-15.

Letchworth responded with typical spirit and aggression. Straight from the kick off, they scored their first try of the match in the right hand corner to bring the score back to 5-15 after eight second half minutes. Almost immediately, the referee yellow carded Brentwood centre Adam Thomas for a late tackle and Steve Killington made two tactical changes, bringing on Jed Roman and debutant Keagan Jones.

Letchworth took full advantage of their numerical advantage and produced their best spell of the game. From a good break, their speedy right winger scored in the corner to bring the score to 10-15 and bring fresh hope of a recovery to the increasingly vociferous home supporters.

Brentwood responded well to this challenge. An excellent run and off load from skipper Woodcock set up left winger Ed Hornby to run an excellent line and score the third Brentwood try. Bird’s conversion opened the gap to a more comfortable looking 10-22 in Brentwood’s favour with twenty minutes still left for play.

The final period was affected by worsening conditions with the pitch starting to cut up and heavy near horizontal rain blowing straight into the Brentwood players’ faces. Both sides contributed to a full hearted closing period with neither managing to add to their scores. The last action saw Brentwood centre Chambers having to be taken off having been poleaxed by a late tackle in a frantic finish to a fiercely contested game.

In the end, it was a welcome and hard earned four points on the road for Brentwood achieved in extremely tricky conditions. Steve Killington awarded the DAVLAV man of the match to right winger Ed Hornby.

This fourth victory in January consolidated Brentwood’s second position in the league with 72 points from 18 matches. The next 1stXV fixture is at home to local rivals Thurrock on 11th February, kick off at 2.15pm.

Brentwood Team: K Skurr, L Payne, L Pratley, J Woodcock ©, R Hobbs, B Amato, B Aldous, J Vogel, T Simpson, C Chambers, D Gillett, A Thomas, A Thomas, J Stannard, E Hornby, and H Bird. Subs J Richard, J Roman and K Jones.