SAFFRON Walden Rugby Club tried to give scrum-half Sheldon Revell a fitting farewell before he moves back to New Zealand. But it was not to be as Harlow took a narrow and, on balance, a deserved win at Ram Gorse. Walden started brightly and soon worked t

SAFFRON Walden Rugby Club tried to give scrum-half Sheldon Revell a fitting farewell before he moves back to New Zealand.

But it was not to be as Harlow took a narrow and, on balance, a deserved win at Ram Gorse.

Walden started brightly and soon worked their way into the home half and on five minutes they were awarded a penalty for hands in the ruck 35 metres out. Tom Hughes slotted home to go three points up.

It was not long before Walden again found themselves in Harlow's 22, and after a couple of forward drives they spun the ball wide and full-back Dave Philp found himself on the overlap and a perfect pass by winger Graham Mummery put him in the corner to increase Walden's lead to eight points on 11 minutes.

Harlow hit back using their impressive driving maul to work their way into Walden's 22, before spinning the wide for the winger to narrow the gap to 8-5.

Walden came back again and three minutes later won a penalty when the Harlow backs were caught offside and Hughes kicked from 20 metres for 11-5.

The teams were trading points and Harlow came back strongly again using their forwards to gain vital yards. When Harlow moved the ball wide one of their centres found a gap to score on 22 minutes to make it 11-10.

Three minutes later Walden gained possession in the Harlow 22 after good ground was made by the backs and pressure was put on the Harlow defence. Prop Stephen Mugridge managed to rip the ball out of a defender's hands and feed Tony Misa who powered over extending Walden's lead to 16-10.

Once again Harlow managed to score from a driving maul after a couple of penalties kicked to the corner. The conversion gave Harlow a one-point lead at the break.

Unfortunately the second half did not match the first, as both teams made lots of handling errors.

The first score was a penalty for Harlow when Walden were deemed to handle in the ruck 20 metres out in front of the posts. The kick made it 20-16 on 43 minutes.

Five minutes later Walden narrowed the gap to one point when they were awarded a penalty after Harlow were caught offside.

The last score came midway through the half when Harlow had worked their way into Walden's half and some crisp passing down the backs saw the winger in space who managed to dive for the line extending the lead to 25-19.