After three games and two preseason runouts on the road, Birkbeck Phantoms returned home to East London and served up a thriller against a spirited Dagenham side. Despite both sides being short, the match went ahead as 10 vs 10 with 30 minute halves (the second half shortened to 20 mins by Dagenham's request).
Birkbeck Phantoms kicked off and struggled to impose themselves on the opening exchanges, conceding an early try against Dagenham's bigger forwards, and through the game defensive play was our Achilles heel, with tackling mismatches and overcommitment to rucks giving us points to work on our next game. In a game of two packs and two backs per team however, our attack got us in the game. Though we saw less of the ball, the confidence from last weekend made itself felt, and good handling found Chris with space to burn. Dan didn't manage the conversion, but lent his energies to disrupting Dagenham's possession from kickoff, and I seem to remember David and Dre sending their nuisance Number 8 to the floor. Welcome to West Ham indeed. Eric won us a turnover penalty which was to pay dividends. Our solid five man scrum packed down, and as the ball went in, it pinged off a Dagenham shin. Chris picked it up and went straight for the line to claim a second under the posts. Dagenham replied after some good phase work from the kickoff and looked like they meant to stifle our territory and possession, but our defence, ably marshalled by Pete meant they were forced into offloads and mistakes which didn't come off. Despite having the lions share of possession, Dagenham were unable to build a score against our pacier attack. After a great scrum, the ball was fed wide to Mo at centre, who had space to run in his first try for the club with his support pointing him on the line. After another Dagenham reply, Phantoms managed the last word in the first half. Eric convened a strategy meeting ("go around them") picked up the ball on the next phase and promptly ran around them, making 30 metres without a hand on him, then threw a beautiful inside ball to Chris who went in under the posts. From the kickoff, Dagenham allowed the ball to bounce and with two touches from the boot the ball sat up for Chris to go under the posts. At the break, the ref had Phantoms leading by three points. Pete's kicking had given us the edge over the superior possession and territory of our opposition
Dagenham came out after half time with real intent, and our defence crumpled for a while. Our lead vanished after shipping three tries, two of which were converted. However, Phantoms rallied and managed to force the territory and possession count into something closer to equality, refusing to let Dagenham have the game, and after a number of drives from our front five, the ball went wide and Mo claimed a second try. Though we had Dagenham tired, and fearing we were going to steal it back, as a number of their line breaks were hauled down after moving clear, we were profligate with ball in hand. Ahmed put Chris into space on the wing to score again, but our composure let us down. Chris made a half break but passed forward with Dan scenting the tryline. There were knock ons and penalties conceded. With a Dagenham scrum on our line, and time running out, the ball was put in and Dagenham sent it blind. Their winger was stopped but the ref called a halt as we had a player injured, and it turned out Mo had been knocked out by running into Dre! With only a minute to go, it was fairly unanimous that the game should end there and all could be sorted. Mo was assessed by Kings X Steelers' physio, and pronounced ok, to the immense relief of most of the bars in London.
A close game, and a real pleasure to play in. We look forward to seeing Dagenham again, they are a top class bunch for lending us a player and really making an under-numbers game matter. What they lacked in mph they more than made up for in inappropriate banter.
MoTM: Some tart in leggings and flashy boots.
Dick of the Day: Dre (K'O) Mo (Physio)
Scorers: Chris (5, missed con), Mo (2), Pete (3 con)
Birkbeck Phantoms: Dre, Mo, Pete, David, Dan, Ahmed, Eric, Chris, T from Dagenham.