The Hampstead Seconds brought a sizeable squad of players to the Badlands of Hackney RFC for the first game of the 2016/2017 season. As ever, the rule of the person living closest to the venue (Naughton) being the last to arrive was duly observed, except for the non-conformist Alfie Brierly. Alfie arrived bleary eyed a mere ten minutes prior to the allotted start time. The story of his epic journey from the leafy suburbs of Surrey was duly interrupted to enable the briefest of warmups.

As the trees surrounding the pitch were bending under the force of the wind, there was time enough for captain fantastic Mark “22 push-ups a day” Harrison to observe that the wind wasn’t quite as strong as he’d expected. Outhalf for the day Naughton was quick to note that he might make use of the gale force wind if it were behind us. Harrison made a quick mental note of the opposing view and continued his stirring pre match speech.

A team run through with plenty of reds, ambers and greens boded well. Playing with the breeze, Hampstead started the game strongly. After forcing an early scrum and running a few phases, Naughton provided an inside pop to new comer Fred Wilsher. Fred came from deep on a hard line to push through from 20 yards, beating 4 would be tacklers on route to a converted try. 2 minutes in, 7 points up. Young Wilsher played a great game throughout from the number 8 position, and looks a fine recruit.

Our starting 9, Phil Andjelkovic started the game strongly, was quick to the breakdowns and delivered a quality ball. His game was shortlived though, going over on a shoulder and not wanting to risk further aggravating the situation, sat it out on the bench. The remainder of Phil’s game involved listening to high praise being lavished on Hampstead’s stand in scrum halves. Our bearded 9 Luke Arnold played well throughout, and also stood in at the 13 position in a cameo that provided one of the highlights of the day. More of that later. Nick was also solid at the 9 and 10 positions, finding decent touchline gains with kicks from hand.

The Hackney boys played solidly but stout defence by the Hampstead team meant that their efforts came to nothing for the most part. The second try of the game came from an intercept by Jack Woodruff when Hackney were attempting to break with a two man overlap. Again converted, a 14 point gap was now in place.

The game was played in 4 quarters which was a wise decision as it gave plenty of opportunity to change out personnel and also reduced the risk of injury. Roger even made an appearance late in the game. In the second quarter Brierly breezed down the right wing to score from about 50 meters out, seemingly without breaking into a sprint at any point.

Hackney responded, and provided a good challenge. Hackney scored a try in the first quarter and had most of the possession in the first half but failed to convert their possession into scores.

A 10 – 12 switch inside the 22 in the third quarter saw Brierly dance through 3 players to again touch down under the posts for another converted try. Hampstead were likely to run rampant at this stage, but a short while later the Hackney team announced that they could only continue with uncontested scrums. This did even up the contest somewhat.

With clean ball the Hampstead backline however were running the ball freely. A skipped pass from 10 to 13 saw the bearded one suck in both of the opposing centres and then popped a reverse pass in the air which was collected a half second later by a looping Brierly. With a two man overlap, again defying convention Brierly refused to draw his man and pass the ball instead opting to keep hold of possession, running the ball through another handful of would be Hackney tacklers to finish off a fine hatrick.

The Hackney team benefited from their move to uncontested scrums and scored a few tries in quick succession. The key phase of the game came in the fourth quarter with a fine sequence of red balls and amber balls. Fred WIlsher coming to the fore when needed. A drive from Fred was followed up by a solid drive from Mike Mcewan to seal what seemed like a match winning score. The referee ultimately told that Hackney had finished the game with 29 points in total. However it always seemed that Hampstead were going to win the game, which they duly did. Final score 36-29.

Man of the match was awarded to Alfie Brierly, closely followed by Fred Wilsher. However, Brierly’s on field efficiency was matched only by his efficiency off the pitch. Having arrived 10 minutes prior to kickoff, Brierly was again defying convention and was on the road less than 10 minutes after the final whistle. The 2nds will gratefully receive the hatrick pints on Brierly’s next appearance! In Brierly’s absence the post match downing of a pint duties would have fallen to Wilsher who was unfortunately also absent. The unsuspecting Naughton was duly called to down a dirty pint by a gleeful Harrison. Naughton’s insolence at mentioning the galeforce wind in the pre-match speech was seized upon by Harrison in the post match analysis. Harrision told of a sliced touchline finder which made only 3 meters instead of the 53 meters it should have done. A harsh lesson indeed.