OC's 31 - 19 Clapham Commoners

The Old Cliftonians began this season with a friendly fixture against a makeshift outfit from Clapham. Buoyed by their unbeaten 2001-2 season, the OCs were justifiably confident going into their first match of this season.

The match began scrappily, with both sides showing signs of nervousness, and it was difficult to detect much of a pattern to either side's play. For this, Clapham shaded the early exchanges, and before long they had put the OCs under pressure on their own line. It proved to be telling pressure too as despite good work by the OC forwards in securing the ball, the backs engineered a comedy of errors and a twice fumbled attempted clearance led to an in goal scramble which was pounced on by the opposition number 8, former honouree OC, Ben Harrild who claimed the game's first try.

This was hardly the ideal start, nor was it indicative of the quality rugby that (non)player/coach Ian Jones had promised. Some of the gathered spectators were wondering if their decision to brave the chilling winds was the right one. They need not have worried though, as the OC forwards, featuring 6 OC debutants, were just beginning to gel led by veteran campaigners Rich Mann & Ali Turner. The quality of recycling was particularly good from the OCs and before long, we found ourselves camped on their line, after successive phases of possession had seen the gainline breached. With the forwards exerting terrific pressure, the backs had some space to play in and Kev Ho at fly-half managed to beat his man and hold off the would-be tacklers to cross over to level the scores after 10 minutes.

The forwards were now showing their class with Chris Cowan, Neil Tubman & Rich Mann in the back row driving time after time at the Clapham resistance. Before long it was the OCs camped 5 yards from the tryline and increasingly influential scrum half, Jun Arakawa, picked up and looked to snipe over between the tackler. The defence held firm, but whilst stopping the flyweight scrum half was manageable for the Commoners, it was a different story when big boned prop, Ali Turner, picked up the recycled ball with just a yard to go. The ground shuddered as the big man thundered over for a well deserved try.

Perhaps the quality of the OC play was just starting to get to their heads though, and we switched off for a crucial moment in midfield following the awarding of a Commoners penalty - before we knew what had happened, the opposition were charging towards our tryline with only Josh Galaun & Paul Kellet back in defence. Despite their best efforts, it was a levelling try for Clapham.

This incident earned the team a round of earbashing from big Chris and Kev who were emerging as natural leaders. A fiery response came quickly from team and it was a Kev Ho charge down that led to The Kellet crossing over to nudge the OC outfit ahead at the interval.

Despite a rousing team talk from the manager at half time , the team failed to extend their lead much and soon found the Commoners showing an ability to come from behind and put us under pressure and complacency had evidently returned to the side.

The players were showing no shortage of commitment though. Special mention must go to honouree OC Karl Jochem who managed to thwart a 3 on 2 breakaway, by dumping their ball carrier on his head with a miracle tackle from behind. The Kellet was using means less fair, and seemed to be trying to beat his own personal best for highest tackle with some particularly lofty efforts.

All this could not prevent the pressure piling on though, and before long it was another former honouree OC, Rich Butler, who squeezed over the line at the edge of a ruck. However, the quick thinking Josh Galaun realised that by piling on top of Butler, the referee's view would be obscured. Support in this role was offered by Brace, Mann & Verrier-Jones and the makeshift referee was only able to award a 5 meter scrum.

Inevitably though, the defence was not able to hold out forever, and a try in the corner left the team's lead cut to just 2 points with half an hour to play.

At this point in matches, players have to dig deep and look hard at themselves to ask how much they want to win. Fortunately, the answer in the OC team manifested itself in a rousing last quarter of Champagne rugby. The debutant scrum half, Jun, was linking the big hitters in the pack, with the powerful running of Kev and the centres, Karl and Stewart. As we marched up the pitch through this multi-phase rugby, it was eventually, a moment of magic from fleet-footed Matt Boardman at full back who released The Kellet to run through towards the posts. Sadly, sensing that 2 tries would put him too near to a hat-trick and all that comes with it, Paul opted to discard the ball in the deadball zone, when unchallenged.

Unphased by this though, the forwards kept up the hard work and after some gruelling pressure, Kev managed to charge down another clearance and romp home for his second try of the day.

The champagne was really flowing though when VJ took a quick throw to Brace the hooker, who then managed to trundle a full 60 yards before eventually passing the ball because he was shattered. Brace was not alone though in his tiredness and several of the players were visibly winding down once the lead had been extended to 2 scores. However, it was also noticeable that those who were able to boast some reasonable degree of fitness, were able to seize hold of the game at this stage. Consequently, it was no surprise to see big Dan Unsworth, another honouree OC making his debut, finish off a flowing move that involve Boardman, Brace, VJ, Mann, Galaun and our halfbacks.

The final whistle was probably a relief to all concerned when it came, not least the few (fool)hardy spectators who had braved the chilling wind to watch us. Captain Kev awarded the man of the match to Jun, who had a fantastic game at scrum half, but overall, I think that special mention must also go to the forwards who performed terrifically as a unit. Handling (Kerr, Boardman) will need to improve in the next game if we are to see more of the champagne and free scoring prop Ali Turner has offered to give advice on this matter if required.

Special thanks should also go to Ian Valentine, who provided the opposition, sourced the excellent venue at the last minute following the waterlogging of our Regent's Park pitch and also refereed admirably.

With the World Cup less than a year away it is only natural that players are beginning to look to shine through their individual performances, with a hope of catching the selector's eye. They will get that opportunity sooner than they think as our next game is on Saturday the 18th of January against London Business School. It would be good to have a large squad for this to allow the tactician Ian Jones to plot our path to victory.

Owen Verrier-Jones

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