Maids played some of their ‘best rugby of the season’ in loss to leaders

Maidenhead played some of their best rugby of the season in the opening half an hour at Hertford, forcing the league leaders onto the back foot with a series of probing attacks.

For director of rugby, Myke Parrott, who was watching from the sidelines it was a delight to see this Maids side who have had to work on their fitness and adapt to the tempo of the London & South East Premier Division - take the game to their hosts.

Against most other sides in the division, Parrott thinks they would have scored more than their measly five points, but the hosts repelled them with excellent defence and managed to nip over twice before the break to establish a 15-5 half-time lead.

Injuries to captain Ben Mitchell and

Alex French early in the second half then took the wind from Maids' sails and Hertford capitalised to seal a 44-5 victory that was much less comfortable than the scoreline suggests.

“If you were to ask Hertford, I think they’d say it was a much tougher game than they expected,” said Parrott.

“We were winning for the first half an hour, we were 5-0 up and looked like the better side in my opinion. They got a couple of quickfire scores at the end of the half so it was 15-5 at the break, but we could hear that in their changing room they weren’t happy and that’s because we’d outplayed them really.

“They defended very well against us in the first half, and I think we’d have come away with more than our solitary score against most other sides. The defence of their 22 was exceptional.

“But we should be really enthused with how we played. We were effective in the set piece and on top in the scrum. All around the park we just had a bit more energy than them and we forced them into mistakes.

“Tactically we did well too, cutting off the supply to their dangermen. But fair play to them they came out in the second half with the wind in their sails, and we picked up a couple of unfortunate injuries.”

Maids had limited the effectiveness of the likes of Charlie Parkhouse and Francis Moore in the first half, but Hertford's danger men saw far more of the ball in the second half and were able to exploit an increasingly tired and ragged looking Maids defence.

“Their pack took control really,” added Parrott. “They have a very athletic, physical pack and we just stopped being able to stop them getting over our game line.”