Stevenage 15 Haringey 6 STAGS were looking for their first home win of the season in this encounter at North Road, and a young side fought hard for a great victory. Stevenage fielded five colts players, including a debut for Tom Meller who showed great po

Stevenage 15

Haringey 6

STAGS were looking for their first home win of the season in this encounter at North Road, and a young side fought hard for a great victory.

Stevenage fielded five colts players, including a debut for Tom Meller who showed great potential, and Luke Young as replacement on his 18th birthday.

Town started well dominating the Haringey forwards at the scrum and in open play, but it was the visitors who struck first, from a penalty, 30 minutes into the game for a 3-0 lead.

Stevenage were unlucky to have loose forward Iain Penny harshly sin binned, five minutes before half time for an adjudged foul at a line out. Haringey's resolute defence carried their lead into half time.

The second half began as the first finished, with Town dominant in all areas.

Good quick ball from Town's impressive backs, found Ian Crompton on the wing, who showed his opposite number a clean pair of heels for a fine individual finish five minutes into the half. The conversion was narrowly missed by Stuart McReynolds.

Stevenage continued with their powerful forward play which resulted in Haringey conceding a penalty just outside their 22. Town elected to kick for points, which Iain Penny slotted well, to extend town's lead to 8-3.

But Sloppy defensive play inside Stags' 22 gifted the Rhinos a simple penalty to bring Haringey to within two points of Stags at 8-6.

Stevenage made a change in the centre, bringing Alex Wilcox on, with 20 minutes remaining.

Alex made an immediate impact running at Haringey's centres and finding enough space to chip the ball over their defensive back line for Michael Wilson to catch and score, only to be judged off side.

Minutes later Wilcox again popped up with the ball and found Town's No 8 Gareth Roberts, who powered through several Haringey defenders to score under the posts. Iain Penny converted to give Stevenage a 15-6 lead.

For the remainder of the game Town had the better of the exchanges but failed to extend their lead.

This victory has lifted Stevenage to third in LNW3, behind local rivals Welwyn and league leaders Ruislip.

Club Coach Terry Penny said: "We had the potential to repeat the 50 point scoreline of last week but I was more than happy to accept a little disruption in the line-up and introduce new blood to strengthen our squad for the future.