Another free-flowing and entertaining game that saw 11 tries and no fewer than 7 lead changes at Hurlingham as a much changed team from last week (including another last minute call up from the 4^th XV – this time the legendary Big Gay Al – and a first start of the season for veteran winger Matt ‘Wurzel’ Webb) took on a strong Park squad.

After a haphazard warm-up caused by some late arrivals things did not start promisingly for the home side as sloppy defending leaked a try within the first 5 minutes and much of the first quarter was spent on the back foot. However parity was slowly established in the set piece and from there, confidence grew. New recruit Ed ‘Shy and Retiring’ Clarke kicked into space behind the defence and was able to reach the ball and tryline unhindered for the first HFRFC score. That opened the floodgates as Hammers piled on 3 more tries in 10 minutes, with Metric ‘Top Scrabble Score’ Ikitoelagi cutting some great angles to score twice and John ‘Croc’ Mowbray picking up from the back of a centre-field scrum and running round, over and through the cover defence en route to the line.

This gave Hammers a 22-10 lead which they protected with some ferocious tackling, particularly from Spellcheck and Joe ‘Andy’ Ridgely around the fringes. Unfortunately, a lot of this was undone by a questionable decision by the officials just on half time that gave the visitors a converted try and hope going into the interval with the score at 22-17. Indeed, things only got worse after the break as the Hatters opened the second period with a try to steal back the lead.

The last 30 minutes proved to be a showcase for the best and worst of the Hammers performance on the day. Being pinned back into our own half for much of the second period, the defensive commitment was huge and the work-rates excellent, while the outside backs showed some great awareness of space and running lines in returning many kicks with interest – one such return setting up the position for Ridgely to force his way over the line to steal back a slender lead.

However, there was also a lack of team-work in attack with too many people looking to do too much themselves and failing to give the pass when other players were in better positions to break the line. This cost numerous turnovers and looked like costing Hammers the game when Park recaptured the lead with only 10 minutes to go.

Thankfully, however, the best had been saved for last. In what proved to be the final play of the game, backs and forwards combined in a superb move down the left touchline which eventually saw Tom ‘Alice Band’ Hamnett cap a fine all round display with the winning score.

Man of the Match – Metric (for a great display in attack and defence)

Tin Man – Sean ‘My Little Pony’ O’Malley (for taking 30 seconds to think up how to abuse one refereeing decision and still only managing a largely incomprehensible rant about England not being very good at rugby)

Team – Howe, Lowry, Fitzsimmons, Phillips, Brown, Ridgely, McIntyre, Mowbray, Clarke, O’Malley, Webb, Ikitoelagi, Sweeting, Hamnett, Hilston