Wrapping up half term with spring weather and a quasi-home match made for a nice change from the arctic expeditions of the winter. 18 boys showed up for an early start, and were flying even in the warm up, meaning that the first request from Regent’s Park was to lend them a couple of players, and to balance the teams as well as the numbers. We decided to do that, and eight of the boys were kind enough to put in a 15 minute shift each in Regent’s Park colours.

When the match started, Hampstead were clearly on top from the off. Camped on the opposing line, the boys built pressure, running into some spirited defence from two of their own, but eventually started to punch through repeatedly. Coming off the back of rucks, passes to the wing, long solo runs, most things were working (except for a few too many knock-ons) and the score continued to build. The second quarter saw two new volunteers, and continued to see some great play from Hampstead players on both sides- tries in opposite corners being among the highlights. It was also great to see the whole team contribution, with a pretty dominant ruck, strong tackling across the team and some decent support met with a number of offloads. This really continued through the match, with them only taking the foot off the gas in the final quarter, when RP may have nicked a consolation. Overall, however, the score was pretty extreme in Hampstead’s favour, with, if anything, a number of tries left on the table.

The boys did us proud with sportsmanship and playing with a smile, though obviously not the most challenging of matches (even with the efforts of the Hampstead players on the other side). Was a great chance to integrate some of the newer players - next week is likely to be an entirely different challenge.