The team trained well Thursday and during the last move of the evening 100 plus capped Toby Collister pulled up with an injured leg and was not going to be able to play at the weekend. The Coaching team woke up Friday morning to the news that Will Parker had broken his wrist on the way home from training and new lock Ben Burrage had been taken ill and was also now out of the team for Saturday! This handed a 1st Cap to Adam Bostel last season’s U19’s player of the season who proved that the excellent Mini’s and Youth sections keep producing players capable of playing for the 1st XV.
Time for Captain Reilly Franklin Talbot to pull the team together and show tight team spirit. In the opening exchanges Old Regaitian looked competitive and certainly took the game to the Home side. Within four minutes another of last season Colts Tom Baldwin kicked a penalty to give the Reigate Team an early 0-3 lead. However after ten minutes of OR’s getting the run of the game and certainly spending most of the game in Beckenham’s half a slight misunderstanding in defence allowed Beckenham’s excellent backline space and their left Winger was able to score the first try of the day. 7-3 to the home side. On the half hour Beckenham’s strong running 12 broke the defensive line to score under the posts 14-3. However OR’s continued to show great endeavour and still had their fair share of possession and territory. Another strong passage of play with the forwards camped on the home side’s try line after several attempts it was Joey Goldsmith who crashed over to score Tom Baldwin added the extra points to make the score 14-10. However the first half finished with the Beckenham backs once again finding too much room out wide and their right wing able to cut back inside for the last try of the half.
At 19-10 OR’s were still in the game with a genuine belief they were in the game.
The score remained locked until the 19th minute of the second half when we had a period of sumlime play from the hosts where everything they tried worked and work to great affect. Reigatian won their own lineout on their 22 and continuous drives from the forwards gained great reward as they picked and drove up to the half way line carries from Dan Jones Ethan Monk and Ciaran Nestor all gained ground the balls was moved down the back line and an offload attempt from Will Graham Park was intercepted the Beckenham 10 put a perfectly weighted kick through for their Winger to win the foot race collect the ball and score the bonus point try and 26-10 ahead. Next came another perfect kick through Beckenham had a lineout on the 22 tried to form a driving maul which the Reigatian forwards defended very well with no ground gained the 9 feed the flyhalf who put a delicate chip over the on rushing defence for their 15 to collect and score under the posts. 33-10. The home side now were home and dry and had the confidence to move the ball. With 38 minutes on the clock in the second half Beckenham were awarded a Penalty with the flyhalf looking to kick for touch he quickly ran the ball the move was stopped before the try line but as the ball came out the side of the ruck a Beckenham player was free to pick the ball up and score on the touchline which was converted to make it 40-10. The young Reigatian side had the last word with another debut from Winger Jonny Bridges came on to replace Fin Coyle. In the last minute Alex Skinner tried to add some pace to the game taking a quick penalty, he found Bridges on his outside who scored on his debut.
Obviously any result like 40-15 will be disappointing but the Team are in transition at the moment and there was a lot of positives from a team with an average age of 24 and two teenagers in the starting XV and not one player in their 30’s. Big game at Park Lane this Saturday with the visit of 2nd place Battersea Ironsides.
1st XV 1. Ethan Monk 2. Ciaran Nestor 3. Reilly Franklin-Talbot 4. Dan Grant 5. Dan Jones 6. Adam Bostel 7. David Niven 8. Joey Goldsmith 9. Alex Skinner 10. Ben Holder 11. Fin Coyle 12. Will Graham Park 13. Tom Baldwin 14. Harrison Mitchell 15. Tom Woodford 16. Nat Kenyon 17. Paul Marshall 18. Jonny Bridges
