Ah, the ‘Finchley friendly’, always a much anticipated match with local rivals, which rarely fails to disappoint. Close games these, last year we sneaked a win with a try in the last minute. This year it went the other way, with a try in the 5th minute of overtime. More about that later. We certainly had plenty of time to warm up and prepare as we arrived at the suggested time of 10.30am, for an 11am start. Finchley pitched up at 11, for a 11.30am start. Kidology perhaps? Eddie Jones would have been proud. The parents tried to keep warm (and interested) as the coaches tried to keep the boys moving around without wearing them out. When the game eventually started Finchley dominated the first quarter, camping in our half with some big ball carriers making yards. It took them a while but a try eventually came. Our defence mostly stayed strong, although our struggles in the scrum this season continued with our relatively light pack. When we did maintain some parity in the scrum, quick ball to Jessie, who found some space and ran in a lovely try. Jessie likes to get Hampstead on the score sheet! With a foot hold in the game, but still with limited possession and territory Charlie ran in a lovely try from a tap and go, followed by a typical dancing-feet try from Jack down the right touchline, whose feet I wonder sometimes are actually touching the ground. Finchley shell shocked, their coaches and parents animated. Hampstead tails up. Game on. Some fly hacking (now allowed in U13) down the left leads to almost our 4th. The breakdowns are more of a mess than usual, which doesn’t suit our desire to get the ball out and away quickly, with seemingly 30 bodies flying or laying around. In itself impressive given there are only 26 boys on the pitch. But we enjoy the half time break 3-1 up, having taken our chances well. Half time chat, go hard into the rucks, spread the ball. Probably similar to last games half time chat!

We do struggle sometimes to bring down big ball carriers and they managed to pull a couple of tries back. Finchley were rotating a large number of big forwards, South Africa-like and they go one ahead. Starting to kick over the top Carter does extremely well to get under the ball, or chase back. Full back is such an unforgiving position and Carter never let’s his team down. But typical of this fixture the game is not done. Finley anticipates well and intercepts, running the ball from inside his half with half of N12 after him. That’s our 7th different scorer of the season. Finchley respond and score again in the right corner, with a similar try to the last 2 where we should have brought them down or pushed into touch. ‘Bully them’ shouts one of the Finchley supporters for all of the kids to hear, in one of the least tasteful acts of encouragement so far this season. You can see the boys are trying to get the ball wide, which has it's risks but it is what the coaches have asked them to do. With the game almost done Jack conjures up his second and at 5 tries a piece an honourable draw seems likely, and fair. Blow the whistle ref, it’s a friendly! And we have plans for the rest of our day. But no. Apparently there are 90 seconds on the clock. It’s our scrum on half way, what could go wrong? Well our scrum goes backwards, they win the ball and 5 minutes later with stops and starts in what is described as ‘Fergie time’ in football lexicon, they go over in the same corner as the previous 3 tries. To be honest I think we were all mostly relieved the game was over. We’d been at the ground for the best part of 2 ½ hours. Time for Sunday lunch.