Mayfair Occasionals 36 – 29 Belsize Park

The match according to Adam:

We were set up with a friendly against Belsize Park at home, after the customary OJ investigation it looked like they would be a good contest and they were!

The match started in typical fashion with us applying some good early pressure and scoring a fairly quick try through a great catch and drive. The try was followed by a drop goal conversion from Sully out wide. And then the usual lapse slowly set in…... BP took the score up to 17-7 before we thought we should do anything about it.

With 3 forwards playing in the backs at 10, inside and outside centre it certainly meant the wingers weren’t going to see a lot of ball this week, never the less we managed to keep the ball going forward in attack and as soon as the opportunity arose stuck our heads into a ruck or 3 to maintain possession. However as our scrum marched the oppo back we gradually realised (about 60 mins in) that this is where we should attack. Hammer balls followed and took us up the pitch step by step leading to a couple of great forwards/Santa tries. At one stage Santa’s arm stretched to well over 3 feet to ground the ball, fantastic finish.

Several times in the second half BP passed it wide and attacked down the wing on occasion scoring but other times our scrambling defence saved us and stopped BP’s score disappearing out of sight. During the first half I thought I was looking in the mirror as the opposite 10 had an equally shocking hairline and tracked my every move when we were in attack. So during a scrum on their 5m line I decided to see just how far out he would follow me, turns out he thought Santa had a pass like Matt Dawson and followed me about 15m from the scrum. This left a large hole for the new ‘OJ ball’ and after a brief rumble with the flanker he went over for a solid try. A try Sharpie would have been proud of and one that would have been mentioned several times in the bar afterwards.

BP then started to fall apart and began squabbling until their outside centre managed to run the length of the pitch and score which got their tails up again. The last 15 minutes or so we finally came together and ground out the tries that we should have scored in the first half. During ‘injury time’ we kept pushing and Will Davies managed to score in the last phase of the game which was then successfully converted.

All in all it was a good game, they were a decent bunch, as was the ref who kept saying that our standard was much higher than the league he refs…

Mayfair Occasionals 36 – 29 Belsize Park

Good
Great tempo throughout

Dale says he ‘sat a lot of people down.’ What he actually means is that he tried to show off the night before and ordered ‘hot’ in Nandos, took himself off the pitch 20 minutes into the game and sat on the can for 30 mins, what then occurred has led to trains around London being ground to a halt.

We dominated the scrum, Hitman marching his man backwards.

Calvert looked relieved when anyone ran at him, as he knew all he needed to do was put in a hit - which he did

Sully’s drop kick conversion and kicking all round.

Fitzy, OJ and Gus were everywhere and smashing everything, at one point Fitzy managed to knock himself out.

Great squad effort (all subs / rolling subs worked quite well)

Good to see some WAGs on the touchline

Fran's photographs as always (will be on Facebook soon!)

Paul R had a stormer in the 2nd row - scored a crucial try, was our only line out option, and played the full 80 at 100%

Great forward running in the second half.

Some great debutants and also some old faces. JB stated "Playing hooker was alright actually. I might be a regular there again. The hit has gone so it is a lot easier" - that sounds like a contract.

Winning the game with the last play!

Bad
The downside to dominating their scrum was their No. 8 had to pick and go each time and he was pretty handy with ball in hand!

Not knowing each others names until 60 minutes in proved costly in defence, I’m confident this will improve as more beers are sunk after games!

Mike injuring himself before kick-off meaning he couldn’t play and picking up D1ck of the Day on his debut!

It got a bit scrappy around the breakdowns for the middle 20 mins... leading to a lack of protection for the half backs.

Funny

Dale’s ‘direct running,’ at one point the white line fever kicked in (Dales gets this as soon as he leaves his own half), he ran forward bouncing between oppo players, I can’t imagine what his stomach was doing at this point, disappeared into a rolling maul for a couple of minutes, reappeared with the ball, he eventually went to ground only for someone else to pick up the ball and score.

Gwill promising to be at the changing rooms for 1345, but after a night out in Hoxton and waking up in Bermondsey realised he’d once again missed kick off!

The ref telling Dale in the clubhouse that he 'wouldn't like to play with or against' him.

OJ getting himself in the dog house by getting his car locked in the car park despite several warning from numerous people in the club house

Throat falcon - Gus' offload to OJ was thrown with such GUSto (thanks Santa!) at OJ's throat that he wasn't able to speak after the game.

Boris’s fluke kicks continue!

Harry's freak tackle resulting in his opposite man pulling cartwheels over his shoulder. When the ref called over number 11 and showed the yellow card... Will Davies, not really sure why he was being sent off, dutifully left the field only to realise that Harry (the real culprit) was also wearing number 11 on his back. Further proof that our kit is awesome!

Calvert saying ‘I was looking forward to Mike playing inside me.’ During the awards in the bar.

Lost and found

Dale has a NZ top (Boris?)

I have a Gilbert scrum cap that was left in the changing rooms??