Men’s 1st XV v Sevenoaks 19/09/2009

Home – London 2 South East

Report by Andy Ward

Won 65-13

After a full week at work (for once) and a quiet Friday night your match reporter for this week was up at 7 on Saturday morning looking forward to a good game of rugby whilst enjoying the start of the Indian summer.

I arrived at the club at 2 for a soft drink (soon to change when Austin turned up) and caught the end of the club lunch, I did think I had the wrong week and it was a 2nd team game after scanning the attendance (who is in charge of getting bums on seats?).

After reading the team sheet and realising 3 star players were missing we still had a strong team, highlighting perhaps the strength in depth we are creating within the club.

With the other 3 senior men’s teams away the club was worryingly empty, however a few did trickle down for kick off and we had a fairly decent crowd although we could have more viewers (who is in charge of this?).

While squinting into the hazy sun, adjusting my sun glasses and pint (from Austin) the referee proceeded blow up and kick off 2 minutes early at 2.58.

Captain for the day, new signing and player coach Ben Coulson playing full back kicked off straight into the arms of 7 oaks, 1st game nerves perhaps as he certainly grew during the game and showed why he has been getting good press for many years locally.

Hove applied early pressure as were used to seeing these days and soon won the ball back. The game was scrappy in the early stages but soon settled down to become what turned out to be a fully enjoyable game of rugby although for the person reporting it was hard work trying to keep a note of what happened and when!

The scrappy play did rear its head again and resulted in a red card for a Hove player and a yellow for a Sevenoaks player. You won’t see the usual report on the actual game itself as my 80 mins was taken up scribbling scores down, a learning curve you could say, a career in journalism not.

On the odd occasion I could not keep up I had the fortunate company of Tim, Geoff and John H to update me as unfortunately the person keeping the electronic score was too slow in updating before the next action on the pitch took place (come back Statto!).

To see 2nd row players bursting free and sprinting 20 yards before offloading is a joy to watch as is seeing props jogging down the wing, however I must add if your going to shout for the ball it’s a good idea to then catch it Paul!

Hove had a fantastic day and by all accounts turned in a much better performance compared to last week and applied pressure throughout, possibly this could be the difference between this season and last season.

Sevenoaks to give them their credit kept their heads up and scored a deserved try in the latter part of the second half, which they converted, I look forward to the return fixture and need to get one of their jackets which are just great.

Other scores mean we are now third in the table, we need to continue the big scores if were to be competitive this season, and of course win every game!

The whole team played well and in particular Tom, Ryan, Scott and James, however man of the match goes to Dom simply as well as a sound game he paid his fees before kick off!

As for the 3 star players missing, we will have to see if they start next week, as it was hard to determine who would be left out based on the individual and collective performance.

Jason