Letchworth Garden City 51-21 Hemel Hempstead

The team from Legends Lane emerged with a fine bonus point win on Saturday in front of a large crowd of supporters who enjoyed a fantastic first half of attacking running rugby.

It takes two to tango and Hemel played their part coming back strongly in the third quarter but ultimately the spoils of war were all Letchworth's.

They were explosive out of the blocs and were rewarded when Luke Mongston popped over from close range. Hemel then endeavoured to work the ball wide only for the rampaging back row player to intercept and score under the posts.

Two then for Mongston in ten minutes, both ably converted by Hem Johal who had a good day with the boot.

Johal put Letchworth further ahead with a penalty and at this stage it was all Legends.

Mongston broke through again as he was tackled he avoided his own hat trick with a superb offload to skipper Fitts who crashed over.

Then some superb interlinking from both forwards and backs saw popular winger Tattinda Gurere go over in the corner and the score was 29/0 with Hemel on the ropes.

However in fairness to the visitors they did rally in the last five minutes of the first half and were rewarded with a fine individual try from a quick taken penalty by their scrum-half McDougall so at half time it was 29/7.

Hemel improved their performance in the first section of the second half and were really putting the Letchworth defence under pressure, aided by wind and slope.

They came away with another seven pointer and were starting to scent blood. However full back Chris Gibbs had other ideas as he fastened on to a pop pass and burst through to score a fine try and ease the home sides nerves.

They were not out of the woods though as Hemel scored again and Legends were down to fourteen when Alex Lennon received a yellow card.

Dan Duke's well struck penalty pushed them three scores ahead and as Hemel faded Letchworth again broke through with a rampaging run from Kyle 'Rambo' Hughes.

He in turn fed flying winger Danny Odita whose Ashtonesque dive really sealed matters and gave him a debut try.

A last minute break from Hughes saw skipper Fitts on hand to score the last try and Duke's kick took it to over fifty and a great win over their south herts rivals.

This was a great all round team performance and head coach Baz Basra afterwards expressed his satisfaction as to how momentum was building amongst his charges before giving them a rousing version of The Wild Rover.

Next week Legends travel to East London to take on Hackney who are firmly lodged at the foot of the table but on their day can be a banana skin which Legends will need to avoid.

Team:

Stokes

Hughes

Robinson

Quarmby

Wilcock

Mongston

Fitts

Allison

HOWMAN

Johal H

Gurrere

Johal A

Campbell

Odita

Gibbs

Tate

Lennon

Duke