Reigate made the short trip up the A217 to play the Old Haileyburians, with 14 players available and Brian making the 15th even though he had a broken thumb. After many phone calls and texts in the morning we managed to have a front row. Which when we arrived was not needed as true to form Old H’s wanted to go uncontested. With one player on route Reigate played the 1st half with 14 men. Old H’s took a 3 try lead into to half time using the advantage of uncontested scrums and well worked back moves. In what was a scrappy first half the game did not ebb and flow due to the penalty count being racked up against Reigate and Old H’s and this continued into the second half(by which time were up to 15 players). An early try in the second half for Old H’s, seemed to kick Reigate into life and even though being pinned in back in the 22 and having little option but to run every time due to wind against us, the uphill slope the penalties stacking up against us being back down to 14 men, the official had enough of us killing the ball and sent Lyndon to the sin bin. However after returning to the pitch he had an instant impact by ghosting in and creating space for our first try?
Reigate for the last 20mins channelled their aggression and frustration to grab 3 tries bringing the score to 19 - 25 , unfortunately the clock was wound down pretty quick? and we were unable to push for the winning score. If someone knows how we can bottle up the last 20minutes of that game so we could start like that we would be coming away from this came with a win. Highlights of the game was seeing Sua and Matt crashing over for our tries, and especially Matt for hitting the post and still managing to ground the ball.
Special thanks for the new guys coming into the squad, Ed back from injury and for doing the shirts. Steve and Joe for being willing to play row, Brian for playing with a broken thumb, and for Sua getting there and playing despite not having been to bed for 2 days, and James playing at fullback. And the whole team for keeping their cool in what was a largely frustrating game for us, but can take posivtives from.
Also as a note the clocks have gone back now, so kicks off will be 2.30pm now so 1.30 down the club for home games. Please reply to the text for availability for next week’s home league game v Law Society 3’s. Also Lyndon will be giving a brief talk on the rules of the game and how to avoid being sin binned before next week’s game.
Also if you are around in the morning on Saturday (10am), people are needed to help build the bonfire for the evenings firework display. Next award winning match report Mon 3rd November.