Depleted Sandown made to pay for slow start

Sandown, with just the bare 15 players and without much warm-up time thanks to traffic close to Twickenham, were on the wrong side of a 50-19 scoreline against Old Tonbridgians on Saturday.

They conceded two early converted tries due to a disorganised defence, and it took them 15 minutes to wake up and settle. Once the forwards started to string some plays together, Sandown started to produce some good rugby. It wasn't long until Tonbridgians defence broke down and allowed Daniel Blinkhorn to crash over the line to score their first points, Lawrence Edmonston converting. However, Sandown seemed to take their foot off the pedal and faced a flurry of attacks from the home side, who scored three quick tries.

After the break, Sandown looked a different team. The inter-linking play amongst the forwards was too much for the Tonbridgians defence and it wasn't long before it cracked. Sandown constructed a 12-man maul on the host's 22 and in the end Nick Heelan crashed over.

This try changed the game, it was now a fierce battle between the two sides, both producing some good rugby. Tonbridgians answered back with two tries, both were converted. From the restart, Sandown put serious pressure on the hosts which resulted in a turn over, and swift hands from David Graham and Luke Chandler allowed Sam Flux to storm down the wing, falling just short of the line.

Sandown continued the tempo and soon Chandler scored under the posts, Edmonston converting again. As the game drew to an end, sandown began to struggle with tiredness, and conceded one more score.

Man-of -the-match prizes went to Aiden Price and Lawrence Edmonston

TEAM: Eldridge, Steele, Blinkhorn, Flux, Heelan, Marinelli, Rees, Dean, Edmonston, Barrett, Price, Graham, Chandler, Tyson, Borrer

Try: Blinkhorn, Heelan, Chandler
Conv: Edmonston (2)