The Powergen London 4 North West League: HARROW 5 BANK OF ENGLAND 39
Harrow RFC's league season opened with a disappointing defeat on Saturday as they slumped to a 39-5 loss at the hands of Bank of England.
A number of changes were forced on coach Edward Botha who was forced to shuffle his personnel because of a number of absentees and first team squad members away on holiday.
Nevertheless there were some positive features in the first half with Harrow showing decent commitment.
They were, however, ripped apart in midfield by the visitors and had conceded three tries by half time.
They started the second half in better spirits thanks largely to a number of strong drives from prop Jurialus Sihaloho but finishing was not clinical enough and Bank made them pay for a number of errors on the counter attack.
With 55 minutes on the clock the visitors had extended their lead to 39-0 when Harrow were dealt another blow as last year's coach Steve Hancock was forced to take to the field after wing Lee
Huggett suffered a shoulder injury trying to make a try saving tackle.
His entrance however, helped to shore up the defence as they showed sterner resilience, and to Harrow's credit they prevented Bank from extending their lead any further.
With Harrow's forwards now having the better of the possession their reward came in the 75th minute when man of the match Sean Pratt went over to complete a flowing move for a well deserved try.
If Harrow can repeat the performance shown in the final 25 minutes of this game in next week's fixture at Chiswick, a closer and more competitive game can be anticipated.
HARROW RFC: Back row: J.Hancock, O'Neil, Bram (c), Gosling, Huggett (S.Hancock 55), Elliott, Chirita.
Front row: Avison, Hellard, Sihaloho, Read, O'Connor, Nevin, Pratt, Argent.
