ST ALBANS 3RDS 17 - 37 CHESS VALLEY 2NDS

St Albans RFC, let alone St Albans 3rds, were without a front row. The uncontested-ness of the game changed the type of rugby to one of quick ball and hard tackling. The lads from Chess Valley were big fellas so we thought we may be in for a bit of a thumping. The reality was was that we opened the scoring with a solid drive up the centre by SA Ciaran (who's wife and father were watching) who overhead passed the ball to the void. The void who caught it was Captain Mick O'Shea who turned and soft passed to the onrushing Gus Tumblis, who stepped his man and scored under the posts. Neil Oxtoby converting. A long kick was made by Chess down to Oxtoby, who collected and then gave a lovely dab left with the ball, freeing our winger (name here) who ran the rest of the pitchand dotted down. Neil Oxtoby failed toconvert. 12-0 us. Losing Tim Davy to a knee injury meant we had no option at the lineout other than hoping to get it in straight.
Chess Valley set about getting back into the game and their rolling maul threatened our line ,ore than once. A well taken try got them under the posts. 12-5 Again and again they attacked and we were unfortunate to ship the tries that we did.Wazza, Barry, Marco, Rikki were all over the pitch making tackles but unfortunately couldn't BE everywhere. Chess took the lead and kept it but we did fight all the way. Whoever brought George Gordon down to the club is to be congratulated. His tackles were inspiring and his try was a justification of his skill, bouncing tackles and spinning and then sprinting on to the next hit. As I said to Ricky Thonhill in the Garibaldi later on, "He knows more about rugby than we ever will...AND HE'S ONLY 18!"

Phil, Mick (c), Rikki, Barry, Marco, Mark, Wazza, SA Ciaran, Neil Oxtoby, Adam, Stuart, Connor, Tim, Mat, Sean, Jamie, Haden, Gorge Gordon, Surrey, Gus Tumblis, Winger (name here)