The 2’s suffered their first reverse of the season against a young, fast and well drilled Staines XV but there were many reasons to be encouraged by the final fixture before the league term commences.

The Hammers began with a bang and a strong showing straight from the kick-off. After some powerful running from the forwards and a clever kick behind the defence, the home team set up camp in the visitor’s 22. The pressure soon told when an error at the back of a defensive scrum allowed David ‘Tubs’ Wallace to pounce (well okay……...flop) onto the loose ball and open the scoring. Skipper for the day Jack ‘Dad’ Short added the extras to give his team a 7 – 0 advantage.

Unfortunately, returning prop Dan ‘Filthy Animal’ Swaine then succumbed to an early injury and although debutant James ‘Sun-in’ Sibley stepped sideways and gamely carried on at loose-head, the change had robbed the Hammers pack of about half its weight and it was always going to be a struggle. As a result the flow of first phase possession began to dry up making the team force things more off the back foot – and when space did open up, several final passes went to opposition hands. As a consequence, although they remained competitive, for the next 35 minutes the Hammers looked about as likely to score as Sam Wesley on a speed-dating evening. It must have been the frustration of this that lead Sean ‘Aslan’ O’Malley to feel the need to hit contact and openly roar in the middle of a maul. The mane and whiskers seem to be taking over!

These bizarre tactics failed to intimidate the visitors who took heart from the Hammers’ loss of their cutting edge and slowly worked their way into the game, dominating possession and particularly the breakdown. The Hammers held out well but Staines did finally register their advantage on the scoreboard as 3 tries in 12 minutes either side of the interval opened up a 7-21 lead early in the second half.

As the game went on the Hammers began to find ways of winning more ball and keeping it long enough to hurt the opposition. Good runs from Brett Stuart ‘Little’ and Tom ‘Boyband’ Hamnett almost opened up the defence and it looked like the home team would fight their way back………..right until Staines scored again, against the run of play, to all but seal victory.

Encouragingly though, far from causing heads to drop, that score stung the Hammers into action and for the second week running, they finished with a flourish.  This time they retained possession throughout the last 5 minutes using slick running and passing to create 2 late tries on the right. The beneficiary on both occasions was Sylvester ‘The Cat’ Olutayo, suggesting that the opposition had heard reports of his injury record and assumed they didn’t need to mark him!

3 tries to 4 was a disappointing result over the 80 minutes but if the free-flowing style of the last few minutes can be taken on to the rest of the season there will be lots of tries and a lot of entertainment to come.

Man of the Match – Sly. A try every 20 minutes is a great start but will be a tough scoring ratio to stick to through the season!

Tin Man – O’Malley looked to have it sewn up with his savannah mating calls, until James ‘Dressed to the 9s’ Hayward made a late run for the prize. Discretely bailing on your team mates early in the evening for a tete-a-tete with another club man’s roomy. That’s just poor form all round!

 

Team – Swaine, Sibley (Lowry), Fitzsimmons, Brown, Hetherington, Vaniman, Hayward (Wade), Wallace, Clarke, O’Malley (Barnes), Short, Magnus, Stuart, Hamnett, Hilston (Olutayo).