Hatfield Queen Elizabeth RFC lost a closely fought battle with Biggleswade 14-10 at the Bedfordshire ground. The difference in the score being two conversions.

Hatfield were the travelling team and started stronger, dominating possession and making strong attacking lines, but the well-drilled Biggleswade players were able to keep the Roe Hill club away from the try line. That was until the pack won a line out, recycled the ball and then Scrum Half Arjun Chandrakanthan – playing through an injury – shot the ball to Fly Half Charlie Gibbs, who ran a devastating line, cutting through the Biggleswade defence, then offloaded to Centre Shaun Shepherd who drew two defenders and then passed to Winger Dan Prowse who was clear to score in the corner, breaking the deadlock.

A few minutes later, Hatfield looked set to double their lead with a very similar move, and as Shepherd received the ball not wanting to be selfish, he offloaded to Prowse, who fumbled the ball and gave away a free kick to the opposition.

Late in the first half, Biggleswade capitalised on a move that saw them break through the strong Hatfield defence to score under those posts. They were able to convert the try, which meant at the break the home team were leading 7-5.

Coach Ian Matthews made changes at halftime. One of those changes was bringing on forwards Stuart Yule and George Stone. Both made an impact immediately, with Stone and Yule breaking through the strong Biggleswade defence.

In another strong play by HQE, Chandrakanthan passed to Yule, who was able to break through several defenders and handed two players off to crash over the try line and put the away team in the lead once again.

Biggleswade retaliated and managed to break through again to score under the posts and retake the lead.

As the game came to a close the Hatfield team had suffered several injures and were playing people out of position, this was made even worse when they had a player sent off. Putting them down to 14 men, although this hindered them, the Hatfield team never took a backward step and kept Biggleswade out of their 22 area.

With just eight minutes remaining HQE had deemed to upset the referee once again and one player was shown the yellow card and was to spend the remainder of the match in the sin bin.

However, the Hatfield players gritted their teeth, stood firm and despite being two players down on their opposition were able to stop Biggleswade scoring again.

After winning two games in a row it was a tough loss to take, but the Roe Hill team learnt a lot in this defeat and will take that knowledge with them when they face Ongar at home on Saturday.