The 2s made a positive start to the MMT campaign with a 6 try victory away at Civil Service, but there was a lot of hard grind and committed defence needed early in the match before the Hammers broke free later in the game.

From the off, Service demonstrated that they were a force to be reckoned with in the set piece and at the breakdown, and with a helping breeze at their backs, were able to pin the Hammers in their own half for much of the opening period. During those early phases, too many passes were spilt as the Hammers gamely tried to run the ball from deep, rather than kicking. Whilst it caused its own problems, this tactic was understandable when you factored in the tribulations of the returning Pete ‘The Wizard’ Henderson. Clearly having taken a few tips from the Irish national side, Henderson managed a clean sweep of shanked kicks: almost losing ground on a sliced penalty into touch and missing a penalty from dead in front of the posts and only 15 yards out. But the piece de resistance came during the tightest period of the game midway through the first half. With neither side yet having scored, Hammersmith had the opportunity to relieve a period of sustained pressure when they were awarded a penalty under their own sticks. While everyone else was already mentally preparing for the line out that would inevitably follow, Henderson had the vision to see another option. Unfortunately, none of his team mates were tuned in on a sufficiently high rugby plain to read his brilliant up and under landing 15 metres off his own line! Somehow, the Civil Service winger who caught the kick was not able to score and the lines were cleared.

As the clocked ticked on, though, the visitors began to hit their stride. Some excellent work from Brian ‘Captain America’ Vaniman at the base of the scrum repeatedly made inroads beyond the gain line and gave the rest of the pack a target to hit. And once they began to play on the front foot, the Hammers never looked back. Debutant Max ‘Imum speed’ Duffy showed good pace to run in the first try from 60 metres and he was soon followed across the line by Stueart ‘Spellcheck’ MacIntyre who finished off a great move that involved Ian ‘The Tank’ Smith pulling off the little seen ‘over the shoulder offload with half pirouette’ and his front row colleague Pete Fitzsimmons dashing 20 metres towards the line before being dragged down just short.

In the second half, it was really one way traffic. With the advantage of the wind, and benefiting from The Wizard having been given the release of an early bath, the Hammers ran in four more tries. Rich ‘I’ll have a bottle of’ Magnus benefited from a charged down kick to register the easiest of scores and all of Metric ‘Scrabble’ Ikitoelagi’s lottery numbers must have come up as a hopelessly ill conceived chip ahead 5 yards from the opposition line took the kindest of bounces into his arms.

Although the home side did register their only score as the Hammers rested on their laurels for a short period, this sparked a satisfying response as first Duffy and then Sylvester ‘The Cat’ Olutayo touched down within 90 seconds of each other.

All in all, a great start to the league campaign and a good confidence boost for some tougher challenges ahead.

Man of the Match : Duffy for his 2 try debut.

Tin Man : You would think that dropping the ball over the line (Vaniman) would be enough to secure the Tin Man title in any week, but that is to think without the modern day marvel that is The Wizard, who won it hands down.

Squad : Smith, Lowry, Fitzsimmons, Hetherington, Wallace, Clarke (Paddison), McIntyre, Vaniman, Clarke, Henderson (Evans), Olutayo, Ikitoelagi, Magnus, Duffy, Webb (Joyce)