On Saturday Old Reigatian 1st XV hosted Beckenham and a very cold and slightly frozen Park Lane.
With the pitch being monitored closely. It was only about an hour before kick off that the afternoon sun had thawed the 1st XV pitch enough to allow the game to go ahead. Beckenham despite being ninth in the league were coming off the back of a couple of impressive wins. They have quality players in their team and certainly not a team to take lightly.
For the first half an hour both teams showed signs of attacking Rugby but neither could worry the scoreboard and it was clear this was going to be a closely fought battle. Then after 35 minutes with the Home team keeping the ball through many phases suddenly Gareth Stephens made a break down the right wing showing some much strength to beat four defenders and crash over the try line for the first try of the afternoon. Lucas Overtoom licked the conversion from the touchline to give Old Reigatian a 7-0 lead. Straight from the restart Stephens again made a break from deep inside his own half he fed on to Max Coyle his centre partner who looked to be all the way to the try line only to be caught just short as he was bundled into touch he managed to offload the ball to Alex Skinner who was in support who touched the ball down to move the score to 12-0 for Half Time.
At the start of the second half the Home side were quickly in to their stride and playing some free flowing Rugby the ball moved several phases then as the play came wide to find Sam Turner on the Wing to run in unopposed again Overtoom slotted the kick and 19-0.
Injuries were starting to take a toll on the home team with Sam Foreman picking up a back injury early on and then Tight Head Prop Toby Collister hurting his ribs the pack were coming under increased pressure in the set piece. Dan Jones did an excellent job picking from the base when under pressure on OR’s put in. However Beckenham had a scrum close to their own try line the scrum started to move forward and gathered pace. Alex Skinner bravely tried to get to the touch down first but was deemed to have touched the ball before it was out the scrum and a Penalty Try was awarded to Beckenham and Skinner was shown a yellow card for the next ten minutes.
With Sam Tuner moving to Scrum Half from Right Wing, Reigatian showed a some naivety when a clearance kick went straight to Beckenham’s left wing who set off on a very impressive run showing great pace and ended up scoring under the posts with an easy kick Beckenham moved to within one score.
With Skinner returning to the field for the last ten minutes neither try line was threatened in the remaining ten minutes. The Reigate team claiming a hard fought four points and Beckenham taking a losing bonus point back to Kent with them.
Disappointing but many positives to take to the next home game against Beckenham at Park Lane next Saturday.
1. Reilly Franklin-Talbot, 2.Ciaran Nestor, 3. Toby Collister, 4. Dan Grant, 5. Joe Gregson, 6. Sam Foreman, 7. Oli Brooks, 8. Dan Jones, 9. Alex Skinner, 10. Lucas Overtoom, 11. Harrison Mitchell, 12. Gareth Stephens, 13. Max Coyle, 14. Sam Turner, 15. Tom Woodford 16. Ethan Monk, 17. Finlay Lock, 18. Ben Holder
