EASTERN COUNTIES 1: Harwich and Dovercourt 13 Thurston 15

HARWICH were totally dejected and deflated after this surprise win by Thurston.

In previous years Harwich have had a winning record against them but the hard facts were that they only had themselves to blame.

While Thurston gave a gritty, disciplined display it appeared that some Harwich players thought they were going to stroll through the game.

The game started well for the hosts when after only three minutes Kyle Hutchins made a superb tackle which forced a penalty.

Sean Fox notched up the conversion putting Harwich 3-0 up.

Strong defending by Thurston made sure Harwich couldn’t pull ahead and it was no surprise when Thurston levelled with their own penalty.

After 25 minutes, Harwich were awarded another penalty which Fox sliced. The ball fell to Ed Mayhew who fed in Jay Hatcher to score.

The conversion was missed but it looked like Harwich had luck on their side.

But things started to change. Hatcher was yellow-carded on 30 minutes and Thurston slotted over the penalty making the score 8-6 to Harwich. Harwich were making no inroads into the Thurston defence and began to look the stronger team. Two minutes before half time Thurston took the lead with another penalty making the score 9-8 at half time.

At the start of the second half Harwich were awarded two penalties both of which were missed. And although they were making good breaks there were too many times when the wrong decision was made as to when to pass the ball or not.

To their credit Thurston kept the pressure on Harwich with some fine forward play. Harwich hooker Shane Manning was the team’s player to be yellow-carded with Thurston adding to their score through the resulting penalty.

Harwich came back again with Hatcher passing to Nick Faliveno who put Kier Blacker in to score. The conversion was missed but Harwich were now a point ahead with time running out.

However, Thurston weren’t finished and Harwich’s indiscipline was highlighted by some back-chat to the referee who awarded another ten yards to Thurston.

From their new position they couldn’t miss the penalty, taking the score to 13-15. With seconds to go Harwich missed a penalty which could have secured the win. On Saturday, Harwich are away to West Norfolk.