The Saxons made a nervous start, 2 men getting ahead of the kick off to give the crowd an early experience of the new depowered ‘crouch, bind, set’ scrum engagement sequence. Some of the tackling early on also fell below the Saxons’ normal high standards, putting pressure on themselves and allowing Harrogate two overlaps that they somehow manage to squander.

Jamie Hearn missed with an early shot at goal when Harrogate’s under-pressure front row stood up for a second time in the scrum, but the Saxons attacking game was starting to look slick, with scrum half Pete White mixing his game up nicely, keeping the tempo up and the opposition back row guessing. On 15min he took a quick tap when Harrogate conceded a ‘foot up’ free kick from a scrum in their own 22, the ball was worked quickly right to Ben Barkley whose nice draw & give put man of the match Stefan Shillingford in for a Saxons’ league debut try that Hearn converted.

Shillingford was back in action barely 5min later when he chased down a Harrogate attacker who had broken clear down the stand side. He got to his feet first and secured a turnover near halfway that was moved smartly left. An inside pass to Nathan Bressington was worked in turn to Matt Farrington who became the second league debutant tryscorer.

White’s half-break from a ruck was rewarded when he got an offload away to Nigel Mukarati who drove down the clubhouse touchline before setting up quick ruck ball that White move swiftly right. It went through 3 pairs of hands to find Bressington with just enough space to squeeze clinically past the last defender, setting up a 17-0 lead on the half hour.

Harrogate’s hooker got a 10min break for unwisely throwing punches off the ball, allowing the Saxons to set up a lineout catch & drive that was finished off by a Nile Dacres short range drive that Hearn converted. Bonus point secured and a 24-0 lead at half time, it didn’t take a genius to work out that the Saxons would raise the tempo 2nd half as some of the Harrogate tight 5 were starting to feel the pace. Alas what started as a light drizzle developed into heavy rainfall that made handling as difficult as staying upright in dry-surface footwear.

The second half consequently became a rather disappointing stalemate, both sides’ defensive structures repelling their opponents’ efforts in attack. The game became rather ill-tempered as the penalty count rose, Dacres taking the gloss off his performance with an unnecessary late hit on Harrogate’s scrum half that earned him a sin-binning. The Saxons continued to attack though, but as the final whistle drew nigh a loose pass was intercepted by Harrogate replacement back Callum Irvine who managed to outpace Gary Dipple to the line before converting. Fulltime 24-7.

Coach Mike Umaga commented : “a tale of two halves, there are a few areas for us to work on for next week, including our discipline. Both the players and the referee appeared to be still adapting to the law changes in the scrum. But I was pleased with our finishing in the first half which was clinical, and our defensive structures were solid. All credit to Harrogate though for holding us out in the 2nd half”.