SSE National League One
Old Albanian 31
OLD Albanian won their first SSE National League One game of the season after producing a strong performance in the second half.
The first half was not the most entertaining, with neither side able to find much fluency.
Dale had the better of the early exchanges but failed to score, while the home side opened the scoring with a converted try by Ross Hamilton after a catch and drive.
The Greens had lost both wing forwards by this time, with both Tom Burridge and Chris Howick off with injuries, but they re-organised and started to dominate.
This pressure led to two yellow cards to Albanian forwards and a penalty try before half-time which Tom Davidson converted.
The travelling faithful were looking forward to the second half, when their team were playing with the breeze.
But how wrong they were. Old Albanian came out playing with determination and got better as the second half progressed.
Parity in numbers was soon restored with a yellow card handed to Alex Powell, and a penalty and a converted penalty try for the Hertfordshire side soon followed, and they quickly stretched the lead to 17-7.
With both sides restored to 15, it was still Old Albanian that played the more expansive rugby, and two more converted tries were just reward for their efforts.
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