Hertfordshire Stags gave by far their best performance in the RFU National U20 Championship on Sunday at Hertford, giving The Army a real fright, before the visitors just got home by just four points.

Having beaten Sussex and drawn with Hampshire, both counties having beaten the Stags comfortably, the Army arrived at Hoe Lane in confident mood. But the Stags showed great resilience after a shaky start, tackling with great gusto and taking the Army on in loose play. It was in the set pieces that the Army won the game. They were far superior in the line out, where the home side struggled to win any ball at all and although the Stags competed in the scrums, the Army won more quality ball. However the Stags made good use of the ball they had to score two good tries in the second half and keep the game in the balance to the end.

The Army went ahead almost straight from the kick off when the Stags conceded a penalty and full back Chris Ramwell added the points. It soon became clear that the home side were struggling in the line out as the Army took two lines out against the throw. The Army were looking stronger in the loose in the opening exchanges, but strong tacking got the Stags gradually back into the game, though they gave away too many penalties at the break down which resulted in Carling Colfer (Old Albanian) receiving a yellow card mid way through the half.

Gradually the Stags gained more ground through some good back play and as the half was drawing to a close it looked as though the Stags were back in the game. Then the Army scrum half, Dave Duffus, made a break from his own half, kicked ahead and Nick Clarke scrambled over in the corner for an unconverted try. The Stags were unlucky not to get an immediate reply, when in time added on, full back Henry Robinson (Letchworth) and wing Kyle Lemon (Stevenage Town) combined to take play to the Army line. The Army conceded a penalty and the Stags ran the ball to cross the line, only to be brought back through a foot in touch. So the half ended with the Army 8 points ahead.

The second half could not have started better for the Stags. In the second minute they won good ruck ball, kicked ahead and Lemon grabbed the bouncing ball to score under the posts. Zak Vinnicombe (Saracens Amateurs) added the conversion and the Stag were only one point behind. Unfortunately they then gave the imitative back to the visitors by knocking on the restart and the Army were soon deep in home territory. The Stags conceded a 5 metre penalty and Tom Appleyard drove over to give the Army a 6 point lead after 6 minutes of the half. Not to be outdone four minutes later, the Stags took the lead. They ran the ball out of defence, kicked ahead, won loose ball on the Army 22 and flanker Miles Dempsey (Fullerians) scored near the posts to give Vinnicombe an easy conversion.

The one point margin remained for the next 20 minutes, though the Army did appear to score, only to be brought back to a penalty for some skulduggery spotted by the touch judge. Then after a spell of pressure, during which the Stags conceded more penalties around the breakdown, Tom Chennell finally crossed the line to take back the lead for the Army. The Army were now winning most of the ball and although they nearly scored, but for a foot on the touchline, the home defence held and the final margin of 18-14 gave great credit to both sides, but especially the Stags for their sustained improvement since the start of the campaign.

Hertfordshire: Henry Robinson (Letchworth); Kyle Lemon (Stevenage Town), Carling Colfer (Old Albanian), Joe Weston (Saracens Amateurs), Tom Johnson (Oaklands College); Zak Vinnicombe (Fullerians), Elliott Birkbeck (Old Northamptonians), Paul Brown (Bishop's Stortford), James Coston (Old Albanian) (Capt), Ollie Day (Bishop's Stortford), Sean Flatman (Letchworth), James Alford (Letchworth), Miles Dempsey (Fullerians), Tom Mellor (Bedford), Tom Jankowski (Welwyn)

Replacements: Joe Frewin (Fullerians), Tom Haller (Old Albanian) (Coston 46min), Chris Johnson (Old Albanian) (Brown 77min), Sean Hughes (Saracens Amateurs) (Flatman 40min), Barry Mellor (Letchworth) (Alford 60min), Brad Martin (Saracens Amateurs) (Colfer 82min), Tom Sadler (Saracens Amateurs) (Johnson 23min)