Hartpury were unlucky to lose to Durham last night, the sixth place team were agonisingly close to causing an upset but the league leaders managed to scrape their ninth consecutive win of the season.
The first half consisted of a mere 12 points , Durham were relentless from the get go, hammering the Hartpury defensive line for multiple phases in a row. This came to fruition when Durham scrum-half Harry Craven broke from a maul and dotted down for his ninth try of the season.
Hartpury reacted well with them marching down the field to Durham’s 22 on several occasions, however a mixture of strong defensive work and self-inflicted errors meant the men in red couldn’t capitalise on their pressure.
Durham were suffocating Hartpury’s attack and didn’t allow for many opportunities to break lines but as the clock went red for half-time the Gloucestershire outfit managed to break the iron defence after a lovely offload from Isaac Marsh allowed for Matt McNab to race away and score under the sticks.
Durham started the second half in electric fashion as they caught Hartpury napping, a line break off kick-off from Paul Brown put the reigning champs in a great field position however it ended with a failed penalty attempt from Patrick Bishop.
Grabbing his second try of the game and tenth of season Harry Craven hit back for Durham, a real poachers try he managed to rip the ball from Hartpury number eight Jamie MaCartney and crash over in the corner for an exceptional finish.
I don’t know if Hartpury let opponents score so they can play better but the first half saw the former champions come back very strong and they were once again camping on the try-line of the men in purple. What was different this time around was Hartpury managed to actually score a try, again through their outside centre Matthew McNab.
Durham were stunned and to add to the already open wounds Hartpury did the double and got another try from a well worked lineout-move straight from the training ground, MaCartney wrapped around the dummy maul and sent hooker Ethan Hunt back down the blindside allowing him to trundle over with ease.
It looked like Hartpury were well on their way for one of the upsets of the season with 10 minutes to go they were looking comfortable…enter Marijn Huis; the lumbering Dutchman flopped his way over the try-line right under the sticks giving Durham the lead and ultimately the win. FT 17-19 Durham
