Louis is on the spot to halt the Wild Geese
Henley .................. 25pts L I Wild Geese ..24pts
A LAST-MINUTE Louis Flynn try spared Henley Hawks’ blushes and gave them a muchneeded win in their efforts to move up the table.
They were given a tough game by London Irish Wild Geese who were quick and well-drilled in defence.
However, with their dominance of possession, and five missed kicks at goal, the Hawks should have won more comfortably, as head coach Pete Davies alluded to afterwards.
“We made it very diffi- cult for ourselves, missed a few chances and didn’t keep our composure at the right time,” said Davies.
“We should have come away with more points in the first half. London Irish were good but the boys are stepping up and learning to deal with tight games.
“There are no teams that we fear. We should have won a few games recently and while the performance wasn’t at the standard of recent weeks, the spirit is building and we’re looking forward to the next match.”
Henley started strongly but handling errors gave momentum to Wild Geese, who went in front with an Ollie Turner penalty.
The visitors looked sharp and notched the first try of the game through winger Matthew Killeen, who cut through some weak tackling to score with Turner converting.
The Hawks, in their eagerness to run the ball, were prone to making silly mistakes but dominated territory with George Jackson sniping round the fringes and Tom Hall, Marcus Lowe and Connor Morrison dominating in the loose.
Their pressure resulted in a try from a driving lineout with Stuart Phillpott touching down, although excellent defence and Peter Hodgkinson’s tactical kick-
ing ensured Irish went into half-time 10-5 ahead.
The Hawks reduced the arrears straight after the break with a Jackson penalty but poor tackling again let in London Irish with Tyler Bush scoring his side’s second try.
Yet Henley began to build momentum and Connor Hayhow, who was a threat all afternoon, collected a long mis-pass from David Hodgkinson to score in the corner.
The Wild Geese were only making rare visits into the home 22 but one of these resulted in a Ben Kitching score with Turner’s conversion giving them an 11-point lead.
But back came Hawks as a series of attacks following a break by James Comben allowed Lowe to touch down and a frantic last couple of minutes saw the Hawks grab the crucial try through Flynn from a driving maul.
Irish certainly gave as good as they got and head coach Duncan Cormack was pragmatic afterwards.
“We were good enough for five points in the way we played but we have no complaints,” he said.
“Our set pieces were good but we couldn’t hold out and that’s the pressure you get at this end of the table. We’ll move on quickly to the next challenge.”