Norwich 13 HAC 50

Norwich were defeated by a far better side, but they made things easy for them, with an inexplicably poor performance, lacking in intensity, accuracy and basic skills.

It started badly when nobody fielded the kick off and HAC seized the ball and powered forward, offloading in the tackle and scoring under the posts on 2 minutes, which they converted.

The accuracy of their passing, their power and support play was impressive all afternoon.

After 15 minutes, Norwich started to exert some pressure but their accuracy and decision making let them down. They got a scrum penalty in front of the posts on 17 minutes which Jake Christian-Goss landed.

Norwich then lost a lineout on half-way and HAC seized on it and moved the ball fluidly through the hands to cross for another try.

HAC turned Norwich over midfield and ruthlessly punished them, scoring in the left corner. They followed this with a try on the right as they flooded through weak tackles that were in stark contrast to those on display last week.

Norwich had a good opportunity to pull one back before half time but poor hands meant a crash ball went to ground. The half ended 3:22 with Norwich seemingly having no answers.

The second half didn’t start much better than the first as poor tackling allowed HAC to run the ball from their 22 all the way to Norwich’s 22 before Norwich knocked on in the tackle. From the scrum, a slick backs move was executed perfectly and carved a hole in the Norwich defence to score.

HAC then scored two driving maul tries which Norwich could not defend.

The hosts finally started to click into gear and pulled a try back after a period of pressure when they flung the ball towards the left wing and, with the defence flat to the line, Dave Micklethwaite kicked behind them for James McCaskie to run onto and dot down.

HAC hit back straight away when Norwich knocked on from the restart and from the scrum they moved the ball in a training ground move to score.

Norwich had one final try for Danny Van Staden in the left corner after a good run by Eddie Montgomery.

Norwich have a week to work out what was missing in their performance before the visit of Woodford.