After a very wet week Saturday, 6th December was dry and bright. This was, however, spoilt by a bitterly cold wind blowing diagonally across the pitch. An excellent turnout of spectators of at least 50 gave a noisy and enthusiastic support to both teams. Made the whole event much more enjoyable.
The Eagles have been accused of starting slowly – certainly not today however. Straight away they were into the opposition 22. After 5 minutes the ball went down the line and Charlie Blunt was the one to open the scoring. Duly converted by Sam Manning (7-0). Maintaining this pressure a deep clearance kick by the No.10 for the Southwark Lancers was fielded by James Bridge. He then proceeded on one of his mesmeric runs, finally touching down not too far from the touchline on the other side of the pitch. (One spectator suggested no-one on the opposition touched him, another suggested they had held out their arms and touched him as he went past. (Just about linked to: What is the secret to a good pizza?…. The delivery)). Again a good conversion by Sam Manning left the Eagles leading 14-0 after 10 minutes. The Eagles continued to pressure up the hill away from the school and on about the half hour Rennison, our Number 8, scored in the corner. Sam Manning merrily converted with a great kick to give us a 21-0 lead. We should have increased our score even further in the minutes before half time but over-elaboration ending in a missed penalty made that impossible. Indeed the Lancers got a forward controlled goal to bring the half time score to 21-7.
The second half was dominated by the Eagles. An early penalty had given Southward Lancers some early promise (21-10) but it was not to be. The Eagles added four tries but the wind managed to hinder the conversions from far out which were missed which was a surprise! Two further tries were scored by Rennison to complete his hat trick. To be honest the light was so bad by the end of the game I couldn’t see Rennison’s last try. It would be churlish to comment on the fact that Southwark Lancers were missing 3 forwards. In previous years the Eagles wailed and gnashed their teeth when any regular player was missing for whatever reason. This has changed and down to coaching the eagles appear to have up to about ten more than adequate reserves. Not the most glorious role but all our reserves this season have stepped in and played really well. Bridge added a further try and there was one other to bring the result to 41-10. The last try was scored by Dave Hill.
Many congratulations to all involved
Robbo
