London 3 North/West

Cheshunt carried on their recent good form, with a 7 try dismantling of local rivals Datchworth. In front of a large Christmas crowd, they put together some wonderful passages of play to move significantly up the league table. They were on the board in the first minute, piling into the Datchworth half and Alex Brown initiated the turn over, he fed Connor Pearce who was soon over the line and the conversion was added by Louis Mulholland. The visitors barely had time to catch their breath, with the rampant home team eager to add to their total, they camped in the Datchworth half, Alex Clark was next to break through the Datchworth defence, he found Gregg Morris out wide who was able to spin out of the last tackle and over the line in the right corner for a 12-0 lead after just 9 minutes. All the game was in the Datchworth half, occasional clearing kicks from the visitors, briefly took play to the half way line, but every time, Cheshunt returned with ball in hand and when Bobby Bolton made a break and into the visitors 22, the forwards were quick to re-cycle the ball and Adam Gelman ran a nice line to force himself over the line. Cheshunt had the try bonus point with just 20 minutes on the clock. A brief excursion into the Cheshunt half was stopped when the home side won the ball back, a chip ahead was collected by Kaz Topham on the Datchworth 10 metre line, back inside to Clark, who stormed up to the 22, a fine covering tackle looked to have immediately stopped the attack, but the referee found the Datchworth defender guilty of slowing play down by laying on the ball and the winger was sent to the bin. Cheshunt elected to take the scrum, Mulholland fed Topham in from the right wing who was strong enough to take would be tacklers with him and be next on the scoresheet, Mulholland’s extras took C’s to a 26-0 advantage. The game settled a little from the frantic pace of the first 20 minutes, although it continued to be played mostly in Datchworth territory, the home side added another try before the break, lineout ball off the top was fed to Joel Bailey, through the first line of defence, he drew the covering fullback and found Sam Rule in support for the fifth try and a comfortable 31-0 lead at the half time whistle. Early in the second half Bobby Bolton received a yellow card for a high tackle and the visitors were finally able to exert some pressure on the Cheshunt line, they worked an overlap for left winger Watts to cross in the corner. They were able to double their total, when a Cheshunt attack broke down, keen to entertain, a loose pass inside the Datchworth half was intercepted by the Fly half, who raced to the line down the right wing. As Bolton returned to the fray, Tom Claridge took his place in the bin when he was adjudged to have gone in high, but Cheshunt remained in the ascendency and scored a nice try from a counter attack, the Datchworth clearance kick found Bolton, he beat the first defenders and passed inside to Dan Saunders, he drew the cover and another inside pass to Clark allowed him to run to the posts unhindered. The visitors, with nothing to lose, tried to throw the ball around and they scored a good try after they had exploited some space in midfield, a long pass to the right winger got him over in the corner, an excellent conversion reduced the deficit to 21 points. But, it was the home team who had the last word, winning a scrum against the head, Reece Shoobridge was quick to notice Tom Claridge on the charge, his nicely weighted pass saw the skipper crash through tackles and in under the posts, another Mulholland conversion completed the scoring on a memorable afternoon. After the Christmas break, Cheshunt travel to Stevenage on the 7th January and will be keen to extend their small 4 match unbeaten run.