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Injury-hit Park were forced to play several players out of position but their hearts were in the right place in a performance of utter commitment.

If Loughborough – boosted by six loanees from Premiership Leicester – marginally shaded the early play, they met with some tigerish tackling that denied them access to the home 22. In contrast, Park scored with almost their first attack, flanker Harry Hudson getting over on 8 minutes, converted by Harry Leonard for 7-0.


Harry Hudson scores Park’s first try

Park repeated the trick on 21 minutes, this time centre Andrew Henderson weaved his way through the defence to score, Leonard again adding the extras for 14-0.

Loughborough were still very much in the match and replied almost immediately with a try to the right of the posts by Matthew Edwards, converted by full-back Tom Hardwick for 14-7.

The match swung decisively in favour of Park when Henderson went on another rampaging run and was met with a horribly clumsy dump tackle by Edwards that had the referee reaching for the red card.

Leonard further punished the offence with 3 points from the resulting penalty, and added another for good measure on the stroke of half time for 20-7.

Loughborough came out determined to play in Park’s half and lock Samuel Lewis charged through to score, converted by Hardwick to get within a score at 20-14.

That was as good as it got for the visitors as Park ran riot, exposing the Loughborough defence out wide with five unanswered tries in the last 25 minutes.

Winger Alfie Dudman-Jones was first in at the left corner. A super move saw hooker Tom Vaughan-Edwards score in the same spot before full-back Henry Robinson initiated another great move that he finished off himself. Faced with three “impossible” touchline conversions, Leonard shaved the far post with the first two, then re-calibrated and hit the near post.

Dudman-Jones then darted in again at the same spot and this time Leonard was on the mark for 42-14.

There was just time for an exquisite piece of skill from Henderson whose delicate chip allowed winger Ollie Hutson to come onto the ball at speed and go in at the right corner. Leonard converted for the final score of 49-14.

Rosslyn Park Head Coach Kieran Power said, “I was really pleased with the energy the players displayed today for our first home win.

“That puts us further towards where we need to be.

“There are still a lot of youngsters out there – we’ve still got several players to come back and better places to go”.

Park: Weir; Marfo, Henderson, Barnes, Crane; Leonard; Crow; Nwakor, Vaughan-Edwards, Farrell; Spivey, MacPherson; Spencer, Taggart, Ovens.
Bench: Bellamy, Gratton, Thomas, Hutson, Dudman-Jones
Park scorers: Barnes (T), Spencer (T), Leonard (2P, 2C)
Parkn scorers: Dudman-Jones (2T), Hudson (T), Henderson (T), Vaughan-Edwards (T), Robinson (T), Hutson (T), Leonard (2P, 4C)

Next Saturday Park play travel to Cambridge, kicking off at 3:00PM.

Charlie Addiman

Images: David E Whittam

October 10, 2017