Bazalgette's shooting boots ensures derby delight
By Rhys Anderson & Luke Jarmyn
HARTPURY fly-half Harry Bazalgette scored 13 crucial points from the tee as Hartpury beat Worcester Warriors 28-25 in front of a sell-out full capacity crowd in their opening home game of the season.
Tries from Ollie Holliday, Alex Morgan and Louie Trevett secured four league points, and made it two league wins from two games to move the side up to fifth in the Champ’s standings.
Conditions at the 4ED Stadium on Saturday afternoon were grey and overcast for Hartpury’s first match against their newly reformed ex-Premiership rivals, with Worcester being just 28 miles away there was plenty of pre-match excitement for the derby clash.
The first notable action of the game was Worcester’s number eight Khalik Kareem seeing yellow after just five minutes for a late, no-arms hit on Hartpury’s fly half Harry Bazalgette.
Hartpury opened the scoring in the 10th minute after a strip on halfway gave the hosts an opportunity to get down into the 22 of Worcester. The move was finished off by wing Ollie Holliday in the far-left corner. The conversion was missed by Bazalgette.
Worcester wing Roma Zheng replied for the visitors five minutes later, following several phases under the posts, the ball got launched wide to the right and Zheng dotted down. The conversion was missed.
With the score tied at 5-5, Worcester received their second yellow card of the game inside 20 minutes, this time shown to scrum-half Lloyd Williams for a deliberate knock-on inside the visitors 22.
Bazalgette regained the lead with a 35-yard penalty kick after Warriors were penalised for not rolling away in the ruck.
On the stroke of half time Worcester’s Williams, back on the pitch after his sin-bin, broke from the base of a scrum and dived over the line in the right corner. The conversion was missed to the left of the posts.
Warriors entered the half-time break with a two-point advantage over the Gloucestershire side with the score at 10-8.
Five minutes after the break, Warriors went over again to extend their lead to nine as lock Harvey Cuckson scored a driving maul and fly-half Will Reed converted.
Bazalgette scored another penalty kick on 54 minutes to bring the hosts back into a one score game.
Full-back Alex Morgan picked up a loose ball inside his own 22 and ran the length of the pitch to score under the posts and Bazalgette’s conversion gave the hosts the lead again.
The fly-half added another three points to the scoreboard moments later before Hartpury’s third try, scored by loosehead prop Louie Trevett with a quarter of an hour left on the clock. Bazalgette converted to make the score 28-17.
The visitors scored a consolation try five minutes before the end as Zheng scored his second of the afternoon, going over in the far-right corner again.
A last-gasp defensive effort secured the win for Hartpury with a crucial turnover in midfield before a kick into touch by Bazalgette and the referee blew his whistle.
Post-Match reaction
Hartpury head coach Mark Cornwell said: “I’d rather that the games were a little bit more comfortable rather than the nailbiter again, which we had last week, and we’re just waiting for the referee to blow his whistle.“It was pretty harum-scarum at the end there with Worcester throwing the ball around and us just staying in there and fighting until the last moment.
“They’ve (Hartpury) shown the character that they did last week in Penzance, it’s really good to see, really good to watch and I’ve got full admiration for them.
“Worcester are a good side, they’ll bounce back, they’ve got a lot of depth to their squad and it’s not easy to win on the road in the Championship, which they’ll find out, there’s a lot of good quality sides out there.
“That’s why the Champ is a great level, especially for young, aspiring rugby players but also full-time professionals who have been in the game to show the youngsters what it’s all about.
"We love playing in the championship and I think it's the level that Hartpury needs to be at.
“We’ve resigned 85% of our squad from last season, we haven’t got a massive squad and there were a few players who moved on and we had to bring some players in.
“It’s about how quickly you can get those players to gel, clearly they’ve gelled really well and we’ve got some guys in on loan who I thought were outstanding today and when they put the shirt on they play really well for the boys.
“As soon as Alex picked up that bouncing ball, I knew no one was going to catch him because he’s quick, and that was the turning point in the game, it gave us the lead.
“Then we scored a pick-and-go effort in the corner, it seemed to be a day for those because Worcester had a couple of them too, it’s hard to stop them if you can get the momentum and Louie got over the line.
“I’ve seen us in the past come under that amount of pressure and concede, not work hard for each other, break defensively, but the boys now have got a work ethic for each other, the never say die attitude which is impressive to watch.
“As a coach, and you’ve got that attitude, it’s hard to gain and easy to lose, but we’re doing well.
“We’ve got to keep our feet on the ground, work hard in next week’s training session, we’ll analyse Bedford and we’ll try and put a gameplan together to combat them.
“Today we teetered a little bit at times, but if you’ve got that work ethic you can always fall back on it.
Hartpury lock and co-captain Jack Davies said: “I’m lost for words, as a group we were confident we could win the game, but to take a scalp like that in the second game of the season is massive for the group, it brings a lot of confidence going into the next week.
“There’s a lot of talk about Worcester and the eyes they bring, but we’ve played Gloucester at home in the Prem Cup twice, and they bring a good following so we’re used to playing in these games now and we rose to the occasion.
“It’s week to week, we’ve got one of the hardest starts in the Championship with our first six or seven fixtures so it’s just about keeping an eye on the next week, the next game and how we can prepare for that, and just trying to win week-by-week.
“We’ve lost a few players, we’ve lost a coach in Billy Twelvetrees who went to Worcester, but I’ve got to give a massive pat on the back to Ashley Johnson coming in.
“Defensively, we look like a different beast this year, our collisions have gone up and I think we're building our game on that resilience that we know we can hold teams out compared to last year when we built it on our attack.”
Stats:
Hartpury RFC:
Penalties conceded: 9
Line-outs won: 11
Line-outs lost: 3
Scrums won: 6
Scrums lost: 0
Sin-bin: 1
Worcester Warriors:
Penalties conceded: 10
Line-outs won: 7
Line-outs lost: 2
Scrums won: 5
Scrums lost: 0
Sin-bin: 2
Hartpury RFC 28
Tries: Ollie Holliday 10, Alex Morgan 56, Louie Trevett 65
Conversions: Harry Bazalgette 57, 66
Penalties: Harry Bazalgette 24, 54, 61
Drop Goals:
Worcester Warriors 25
Tries: Roma Zheng 15, 74, Lloyd Williams 40, Harvey Cookson 45
Conversions: Will Reed 46
Penalties:
Drop Goals:
Hartpury RFC: Alex Morgan, Keir Clark (Jack Cotgreave 44), Robbie Smith (Max Knight 63), Ollie Allsopp, Ollie Holliday (Cai Gealy 68), Harry Bazalgette, Rhys Price; Louie Trevett (Rhys Davies 67), Will Crane (CC) (Ethan Hunt 70), Alex Gibson (Oliver Minnis 52), Peter Paramore, Jack Davies (CC), Cameron Cobbett (Deian Gwynne 57), Harry Short (Ellis Hart 63), Jarrod Hayler.
Sin Bin: Keir Clark 34
Worcester Warriors: Louis Brown, Roma Zheng, James Short, Billy Twelvetrees (C), Alfie Garside (Tom Seabrook 44), Will Reed (Jake Garside 61), Lloyd Williams; Livai Natave (Michael Summerfield 51), Austin Wallis (Jasper Spandler 51), Tim Hoyt (Ashley Challenger 68), Tim Anstee, Harvey Cookson, George Young, Matt Kvesic (Thabo Ndimande 51), Khalik Kareem (Tiff Eden 57).
Unused Subs: Hallam Chapman
Sin Bin: Lavai Natave 5, Lloyd Williams 19
Referee: Andy Wigley (RFU)
Attendance: 2,000
Half-Time: 8 - 10 (to Worcester Warriors)
Star Players: Louie Travett (Hartpury RFC) / Roma Zheng (Worcester Warriors)
