CS Rugby and Hertford could not be separated in this hard fought National Division 3 tussle at Duke’s Meadows. It might have been end of season, rather than rutting season but there was no lack of endeavour on display here : even if the potential prize at stake was no more than bragging rights for the team finishing the higher in the league. At the moment the table shows the Duke’s Meadows branch of the Cervidae family just ahead, but our visiting relations from Ware do still have a game in hand. Stags and harts are incidentally zoologically one and the same beast.

This had been billed as a contest likely to be decided either by the home side’s more penetrative backs or the away side’s more forceful forwards. As it was, neither of these perceived advantages proved that significant and predictably perhaps it seemed as if both the home forwards and the visitors' backs raised their games, affronted no doubt by the absurdity of any such suggestion.

CS were first to strike on this bright spring day with a try from flanker Patrick O’ Halloran, converted by full-back Ben Lloyd who had taken over the kicking duties from Scott Haddon , the latter having what was for him a quiet afternoon at stand-off half : all credit of course to Hertford for keeping him so well contained.

Although sunny there was still quite a breeze, sufficient to bring the adjacent Head of the River race to a premature conclusion with the conditions – after just 75 boats had finished – being deemed unsafe.

Hertford reduced the gap with a penalty goal : soon matched by one from Lloyd but on the half-hour the scores were tied up by a converted try scored by visiting fly-half Robert MacPherson-Smith whose name suggests he may well have done some deer stalking himself in his time : 10-10 then at the break.

The smart money at this point was surely on CS – whose forwards had by no means been overawed by Hertford’s muscle - cutting loose through their backs in the second half but that was not to be. Instead Hertford went ahead through a try by their centre Stuart Smart , only for this to be cancelled out by a try from another man with a hint of a Scottish connection in his name, CS scrum-half, Tom McArthur and, indeed, with the conversion successful the home side led 17-15 going into the game’s last quarter.

Hertford's scrummaging methods were finding disfavour with referee Michael Woods, who with his wired-up assistants kept a tight rein on proceedings throughout , and after a number of penalty awards he finally lost patience and sent the venerable Hertford loosehead and coach, Kanwaijit Basra, 41, to the bin, much to the satisfaction of the home contingent in a lively crowd. The ten minutes were, however, seen out relatively comfortably by Hertford with CS failing to make their numerical advantage count.

Stuart Smart was still proving quite a handful in midfield and a second score for him after 69 minutes took Hertford to 17-20 and into the lead therefore for the first time in the match and not a bad time at all to have it . Arguments could and indeed did rage in the most good natured of ways in the bar after the game as to which side might have been the most deserving of a win : because a draw it did indeed finish up with Ben Lloyd holding his nerve to slot a 36 metre kick on 72 minutes.

There was to be no further score although Smart - who had now assumed the kicking duties for Hertford after the departure injured of MacPherson-Smith - did have a chance to steal it with the last kick of the game but his sorry effort did not even threaten the posts and neither side’s players looked too unhappy with the eventual outcome : for CS their third draw of this campaign.

Next Saturday they visit bottom of the table Barking, who have had a sad and hapless season, for the first time.

CS Rugby 1863 scorers:

Tries:

O’Halloran
McArthur

Cons:

Lloyd (2)

Pens :

Lloyd (2)