Sevenoaks were hosting Warlingham for a B team fixture on a nice sunny morning. After a few unplanned pre-match challenges got sorted, the match finally kicked off 10 minutes late but with an even bigger challenge in that Warlingham did not send a B team and their entire team was man for man bigger than the Sevenoaks players.
Within 2 minutes of the kick-off, Warlingham's adult sized centre sprinted through for their first score (0-5). Hoping that this was just early nerves, Sevenoaks kicked off and found themselves soon in trouble again after slick handling by the Warlingham backline and their winger crossing the try line with ease (0-12). Sevenoaks then started to manage to get some procession and going through the phases, but the ball got turned over 5 meters from the Warlingham try line and against the run of play, Warlingham scored their third try with unacceptable ease (0-19). Being determined to fight back, Sevenoaks finally took control of the match and dominated the second part of the first half, with some excellent runs by Alex Holden, Chris Barret, Max Gilbey, Fionn Daly and Liam Thomas to name a few and some great handling by Louis Parker, coming close to scoring twice but unfortunately left down by handling errors under pressure.
Sevenoaks kick-off the second half and was immediately on the attack in Warlingham's 22, but against the run of play, the Warlingham right winger managed to sprint passed his counterpart and soon Sevenoaks were behind their own try line trying to understand how they have managed to concede a try when they were in control (0-26). Sevenoaks then re-took control of the game and launched attack after attack, playing wide flowing rugby trying to tire the much larger Warlingham pack and back line. Resorting to barbarian rugby and running even from penalties, after some excellent individual runs and rucking, Sevenoaks finally got their reward when Fionn Daly went over in the corner (5-26). With their tails up, Sevenoaks were planning a comeback but they were quickly brought back to reality and that they were playing a A team with Warlingham scoring 3 tries in the final 10 minutes to bring the final score line to 5-47.
A tough day at the office in a clearly mis-matched fixture but the boys kept on fighting and a really good performance by the entire team for 85% of the match. The hard lesson learned was that if you dare to slip a first-time tackle against a very good team, they will make you pay. Sevenoaks player of the match: Liam Thomas.
Squad:
Fin Thomas, Charlie Andrews, Dan Featherstone, Fionn Daly, Max Gilbey, Conrad Sykes, Kamren Satrettin, Liam Thomas (Captain), Alex Blackmore, Will Francombe (Vice-captain), Jack Davies-O'Malley, Louis Parker, Chris Barrett, Joe D'Alessio, Alex Holden, Peter Latrobe, Nich Mclean, Joe Clark
