Great start to the season with a win at Ealing

An early start for the first league match of the season, and the first official match of junior rugby. A great location for it as well - the Ealing facilities definitely make it feel serious. Especially true when standing on a goal line and seeing just how far away the opposing try line is on a finally pitch. Eighteen boys working hard in warmups, from scrum machine to under the high ball, and they were waiting for the opposition. Pre match formalities increased - the front row being called in for the ref to have a pre-match chat was definitely new, but the boys all rose to it.

The match started with a bit of a seesaw battle in midfield: relatively tight with a number of handling errors / infringements on both sides. One positive was that the forwards did get to try out their scrum, for the first time with pushing allowed. Their work appeared to really pay off, achieving real dominance; the biggest issue appeared to be knowing when to stop. Whether the 45 degree rule that was an automatic reset, or the 1.5m limit on how far they could push, they probably didn’t get the rewards their work deserved. As the platform started to be established, the boys’ speed to the outside started to tell, despite some heroic cover defence by Ealing. Two tries ruled out for a possible toe in touch created a little concern that wasn’t go to be the day, but the boys solved it with the relatively simple fix of going through in the centres. Three tries from the backs and continued hard work on defence and at the breakdown put us in a good place at the half.

Rolling on the bomb squad at the half saw the game pick up if anything. The boys started to exert sustained pressure, with even the errors not providing relief as the Ealing team panicked under the pressure, good takes of their kicks setting up for the Hampstead boys to come straight back. The boys also kept up the physical end of the bargain making tackles across the team, which meant that Ealing really did have nowhere to go. The boys kept the scoreboard kicking over, mixing power tries with the speed, and really kept the ball out of their own 22 for almost the entire half. Another try ruled held up, a few errors where they left a few scores out there, but was hard to really find too much fault. They even got the offloading game going for a while, really keeping the speed up. A good win to nil with that almost flattered the opposition , a huge amount for us to work on, but incredibly proud of the boys’ effort. On to the next!