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Reply ID 39154

Did they manage to avoid relegation Victor?

Reply ID 39159

quote:

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Originally posted by Victor Meldrew
If anyone is at a loose end and fancys watching some Barbarian style running rugby up at Hoe Lane this coming weekend, there is an invitation fixture skippered by HRFC 1st team Skipper Andy Johnson and Hertford 1st Team No6 Alfie Church. The teams will be made up from players that have played in the youth and senior sections at HRFC for Alfies team and from players that Andy Johnson has played with during his time at clubs such as London Welsh, Saracens, Bedford, Hertfordshire and London and South East. Kick off is at 3.00pm and the forecast is sunny.

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Reply ID 39162

Loads of injuries, lots of effort, but in the end not quite good enough. Maybe a season (& hopefully not two)in London North may give some chance to regroup. has to be said that in too many games this season (and this year I have to admit that I didn’t go further than Hoe Lane) we were outclassed. Then again occasionally they got it all right and looked a proper 3rd div side with even promotion ambitions - but only occasionally..... Lots of commentary about payments & semi-pro, the relationship with Saracens over the season.. Any views...?

Reply ID 39168

Hertford has had a terrible season for injurys and has in fact called upon 61 different players for the first team. I have pasted a snippet from our skippers end of season review below, for the rest of it you will have to turn up on saturday and shell out £3 for a program. Our 1st away win at Dings was a hi-light, as was another fine home win against North Walsham along with wining our 4 successive Herts Presidents Cup last Sunday. At times during the season we showed our potential and pushed league champions Southend and 3rd placed Havant all the way during tightly fort battles at Hoe Lane. However, playing in a highly competitive league you cannot play in patches and our failure to consistently perform week in week out was the major factor in our relegation. My views are that this season we missed some key players in the team throughout the season and loosing Alfie Church to injury when we were fighting for relegation was a major blow. Agreed at times Hertford have been outclassed by the likes of Westcombe Park who have some fantastic players, of which their centers are bigger than our second rows! Until this season Hertford had been very much against bringing in salaried players to compete, but made the decision to do so for the 2006/7 season. It may sour like sour grapes, but the club just does not have the finances to pay the big bucks such as others in the league. A prime example is the Westcombe Park No 8 that lives in Ware, is a school mate of one of the Hertford lads, but still chooses to travel 1 1/2 hours on a saturday morning to play in the same league as his local club. I could go on all day, but I do believe that Hertford does have the team to compete at the top of London 1 and maybe even bounce straight back up, but Im not too sure if that would be wise............ Please all come Saturday, it should be a good fun packed game.

Reply ID 39185

I'd also like to add that Hertford have always been a much smaller team physically than the others in Nat. 3. This was a problem identified last season but unfortunately not enough was done to correct it. A lot of teams go up to Nat 3, go down come back and settle there. It is a big step up no doubt. Fingers crossed a season of london 1 will re-energize the club for the future. We did go a long way very quickly (lon 3 NW to Nat 3 in 4 or so yrs) so life is not all doom and gloom.

Reply ID 39192

Mr Fandango, may I refer you to my earlier comments on the financial issues, unfortunatley the big boys wanted too much money!

Reply ID 39197

quote:

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Originally posted by Victor Meldrew
I could go on all day, but I do believe that Hertford does have the team to compete at the top of London 1 and maybe even bounce straight back up, but Im not too sure if that would be wise............ Please all come Saturday, it should be a good fun packed game.

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