Shrugging off no fewer than 7 post-selection changes in personnel, only having 14 members of the team report for duty and a delayed kick-off that necessitated playing only 30 minute halves, the 2’s nonetheless opened the season’s account with a mightily promising 55-0 demolition of Mill Hill.

With half of the side making their 2^nd XV debuts (including Andre ‘Super-sub’ Greef who stepped up off the 4^th XV bench at 5 minutes notice) an early lack of cohesion would have been forgivable. However the Hammers backs quickly showed that they had the pace and skill to cause their opposite numbers trouble with 3 tries in the first 15 minutes. New boy Tom “League convert” Barnes showed footwork as silky as his shorts in opening the scoring with a clean break straight from a quick penalty and was then instrumental in a flowing backline move that was well finished off by Tom “Alice Band” Hamnett. Brett “Nickname pending” Stuart then stepped his man in centre-field and proceeded to beat most of the Mill Hill backs at least once in a searing break that ended with a try under the sticks.

Having firmly established their ascendancy, the backs then attempted to find ways of out-doing each other in the art of not scoring. First “Alice Band” knocked on in the act of grounding a kick ahead with the line at his mercy and then Mark “Wedding Jitters” Rudman allowed himself to be upended and stripped of possession by the only defender anywhere near him, after crossing the whitewash! Perhaps unsurprisingly, the forwards refused to give them the ball for the rest of the half but this did not stop the scoring; Nick “Little Miss Chatterbox” Dinning and Steuart “Spellcheck” McIntyre both crossing before the break.

The second half began with a bang as the Hammers scored straight from the kick-off; “Super-sub” winding up on the end of some impressively simple-but-effective handling from backs and forwards down the right touchline. “Spellcheck” and “Supersub” then added a second try each before the end of the 3^rd quarter.

Perhaps feeling that the job was done, some of the impetus began to be lost towards the end of the match. While the work-rates remained impressively high (particularly from Matt “M&M” Milne and Henry “St Tropez” Paddison) this effort went unrewarded due to a temporary abandonment of the gameplan. It was perhaps the frustration of this that led to “Little Miss Chatterbox” becoming involved in some firsticuffs with his opposite number (although a rumour was circulating after the game that the referee had slipped the Mill Hill captain a few quid to stop his inane chatter once and for all!) Thankfully, normal service was resumed for a final push. “Spellcheck” completed a man of the match winning hat-trick and nudged the final score over the 50 mark with virtually the last play of the game.

All in all a very encouraging opening fixture with a lot of good things to build on in preparation for some of the tougher challenges that lay ahead.

Man of the Match:        Spellcheck

Tin Man:                      Little Miss Chatterbox (though Rudman’s debacle
                                    pushed him close)

Squad:                          Huntingdon, Clarke, Lacey, Brown, Milne, McIntyre,
Paddison, Vaniman, Dinning, Barnes, Greef, Stuart, Short, Hamnett, Rudman.