Super Saturday kicked off with the World Cup hosts once again shocking the world with an immense win over the Irish!

The Swans faced Beckenham IVs at home for their second league game. Fresh off the back of a win last week, and buoyed by England's performance in the World Cup, anything less than a win would be bitterly disappointing for the plucky Swans. Another hot, dry day, but Autumn had arrived with the sort of wind Nishi Patel could easily send signals with from his house on the hard shoulder of the A2.

1st Half

The first half was under way with The Swans battling uphill (and against the ref for the majority of the game!). Scrum after scrum The Swans struggled against Becks' 1000kg pack. Becks' porky pack dominated the set pieces and used their considerable heft to smash the fringes. Stampede followed by stampede were consistently unable to penetrate The Swans' mighty defence.

Newcomer Simon Rushworth was playing open side, proving to be a menace throughout the game with turnovers, cheeky steps, and an excellent work rate causing havoc to the visitors. The Swanley backs' line speed shut down Becks and they had no other choice but to use their lumpy forwards to carry. The Cook brothers returned the favour utilising their substantial power and breaking Becks' defensive line on several occasions.

The Swans' pods were frequently used, and succeeded in gaining momentum. Soon the 46inch inside leg of Jack Nash was unleashed, during his solo 40m dash he did his best impression of a baby giraffe galloping across the Savannah plains being hunted by hungry hippos, offloading beautifully in the tackle to debut No.9 Bradley, who in turn shrugged off two defenders to score The Swans' first try. Eager not to break his missing streak Stuart Tate lined up the conversion and pulled it wide, job done.

The Becks restart found its way to Coach George Morris, under immense pressure he managed to offload but in the process took a huge hit from a Frank Bruno lookalike, retiring the sage hooker early. Harry knew exactly what he meant!

Resident tubby funster Paul Hately sent the ball deep into the visitors half but failed to make touch, which allowed the visitors to retaliate through the backs, forcing George Oliver to charge down the defence, followed by an excellent steal from Jack Nash. The ball then found its way to Anthony Pittock who had come charging off his wing straight into a WWE sized prop who suplexed him into next week. The ref decided to penalise Ant for holding onto the ball, blowing his whistle in anger not for the first or the last time of the game.

One last highlight of the first half came in the form of Ali Hulls showing the crowd his pace whilst dusting the visitor's backs and cutting his opposite number in half. Great smash Ali!

2nd Half

The Swans now had the downhill to their advantage and started to utilise the backs and keep the visitors pinned in their own 22. The Swans were awarded a penalty, bronzed bomber Ben Bates (he's just got back from Benidorm don't you know) shattered Becks' defence, but with no support the ball got turned over and recycled out to Becks, backing themselves they decided to run straight into the arms of Phil Butler who was more than happy to obliterate his opposite number by way of thanks.

In a rare turn of events, the ref awarded something in favour of The Swans, and a scrum ensued. Chief "5 second per video" videographer James Aitkenhead (aka Bacon Head) was screaming from the side and encouraging the boys to go for the blind run. We know 5 seconds might suffice for your home videos Bacon, but try and leave the camera rolling a bit longer during a rugby game (consider it cuddle time). Paul Hately had other plans, an outrageous dummy was sold to The Visitor's 10 & 12, only for the same dummy to work on their unsuspecting 13 (I mean, nobody would have the audacity to throw a dummy like that twice would they?!), successfully splitting Becks' backs in half, all that was left was for him to waddle over the try line and stick the ball down straight between the posts.

Going completely against character, Stuart Tate decided to slot this one and add the extras.

The Becks restart was knocked on. Scrum-down and the Becks 8 carried from the back, but was quickly stopped in his tracks, Simon Rushworth turned the ball over, which found its way to Stuart Tate's feet, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he picked up the ball and ran a fantastic 60m solo effort, scoring a top contender for try of the season (only two games in!). Phil Butler stepped up for the conversion while Tate attempted to catch his breath, adding another 2 points to the Swans.

The Becks' restart found Kieran, who bumped the first tackle and offloaded to James Yates, a text book draw and pass was executed, with Yates delivering a signature crisp pass, creating an overlap to release gorgeous George Oliver to run his very own solo effort and score. Breath recovered, Stuart Tate was back on kicking duties and converted the try.

Becks finally got the ball and a well worked try was awarded after several forward pods. Becks developed a taste for points and came back with a vengeance as they applied pressure using all of their big ball carriers. Owen Connelly took down a big forward with a try saving tackle on The Swan's 5m line. Paul Hately dumped his opposite number much to the ref's disliking, meaning Becks were awared with a 5m penalty. A fired up Becks capitalised from the advantage and scored another forward try.

The ref clearly had a new whistle he wanted to give a test run considering the amount of times he blew it during the last 20 minutes of the game. Swans found themselves constantly defending their tryline for the last 10 minutes until James Yates had had enough and went headfirst with his magic scrum hat into the ruck, committing daylight robbery and stealing the ball, allowing Bradley to box kick it, followed by a superb chase from George Oliver to catch and pass to flanker Bradley Robinson, who in turn unselfishly used resident speedster Phil Butler to score The Swan's final try. He then slotted the conversion to rub salt into the wound.

At some point a contentious penalty try was awarded to the visitors due to some sideline backchat not being taken very kindly by the ref.

By the final blow of the whistle the score stood at Swanley 1XV 33 - 19 Beckenham IV.

For the second week running, Stuart Tate was awarded Man of the Match.
Rambo this week went to Lee Crook for putting in a great shift, who in complete contrast to Samson the great, seems to have actually enhanced his abilities as a result of his accelerated hair loss.
Dick of the Day has to go to Coach George Morris who apparently had a part to play in our telling off by way of the penalty try.

Once again a massive thanks to the Swanley Flock for coming out to support us. One final special mention to Pete Bresser for his excellent photography!

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