Datchworth and Welwyn rugby clubs are gearing up for their first derby meeting of the season - and their final games before that both ended in defeat.

For the Men in Green, there was a huge heap of disappointment.

Sitting bottom of the Counties One Herts Middlesex table, and still looking for their first win, they were away to the side directly above them Chiswick.

And it was the west London side who claimed the five points with a 26-22 success, although Datchworth did come away with one bonus point.

For Welwyn, it was more a case of focusing on the performance than the result as they hosted third-place Brunel University.

The students ran out 48-19 winners, making it six successes from eight with one draw, but for Welwyn, there were positives to take.

Knowing the opposition would be very quick and mobile, the game plan was to keep the ball tight and not allow Brunel as much space as they would like.

And the tactic worked well as despite spending much of the time in their own half, a Brunel attempt to get the ball wide resulted in an interception by Jack Cotterell, who sprinted half the length of the pitch to score.

With the successful conversation by AB Makoni, Welwyn had a 7-0 in the lead and the situation became even better when Welwyn won a scrum in the Brunel 22 and Josh Milton managed to cross the line for a try.

Makoni’s well-struck conversion attempt came back off the post but  there was still a 12-0 lead for the hosts.

However, from the restart, Brunel secured a line-out in the Welwyn 22 and following a number of attempts, they crashed over for five points.

They were soon back on the attack and a fantastic kick to the Welwyn corner led to another try, this one converted to tie the score up at 12-12.

The visitors then got their noses in front at the start of the second half strongly and the bonus-point score gave them a 26-12 advantage.

Welwyn were not giving up and made inroads into the Brunel 22 on a number of occasions but turnovers and the visitors' fitness all combined to stretch the lead out to 48-12.

But the home side did finish strong and with their dominant scrum eventually leading to a Brunel yellow card, they used the numerical advantage to send Anton Denton crashing over for a consolation converted try.

Datchworth remain bottom of the table, now seven points adrift of Hackney, while Welwyn are ninth, a further two points clear. 

The derby is at Datchworth Green on Saturday.