Rugby is a game of two halves - unfortunately!
When Jack Rossiter opened Rams account for the new season with an excellent intercept try things looked rosy for the visitors. And they got better with Steve Bryant finishing a superb build up to score under the posts. To cap it all, the ever dominant Rams scrum bullied the Hawks pack into conceding a penalty try on the strike of half time to give Rams a 10-24 half time lead.

But the game turned into a period of feast and famine of biblical magnitude for the away side and despite much effort the second 40 minutes was barren of any score for them. All it needed was Charlton Heston to role up in a chariot dressed in Green and Yellow, but even better for the Hawks than an ancient hero (or an actor playing one) was their own saviour in the form of scum half Connor Murphy, who controlled the second 40 minutes with a kicking masterclass - tee and hand.

Sadly, the many Rams visitors who pub crawled their way to Dry Leas will have to wait for the last game of the season for their side to have another chance for ascendency in the "Battle for the Thames". In the interim, the new coaching team of Seb Reynolds, Danny Batty and Owen Root will take lots of positives from Saturday, and work on the negatives, which were not difficult to spot. And everyone can think positively, after all, this is the first time at National 2 that Rams have gained a point on the first game of the season. Every cloud, and all that........!

Next Saturday Rams entertain London Irish Wild Geese at Home. KO 2:30 pm.

Photo Credit: Paul Clark - S2S Photography