London French Cuvee 5 - 57 OC's

Agincourt, Waterloo, and now Barnes. The British have a history of destroying the French at every given opportunity, and The Old Cliftonians made sure that there was no repeat of the Battle of Hastings, with a barnstorming display of brute force and incisive running. Of the nine tries that were run in, only one was scored by a forward - the hard-working Steve Hartland - but all were testament to a pack that outgrunted the French throughout the game.

With the French denied good quality line-out ball thanks to excellent spoiling by Dan Unsworth and Josh Galaun, and denied a solid platform at the scrum thanks to an impressive performance from the tight five, they were short of ball and short of ideas. On the rare occasion that they came up with the ball they were inevitably munched in the tackle, notably by scrum-half debutant Ian Jones, who tackled way above his weight all game long. Once on the floor the pack rucked magnificently, creating turnovers with monotonous regularity.

Although the first breakthrough was made by Tom Cowle, perfectly timing his run from full-back to cross for a well taken try, Euan Kenworthy was the primary beneficiary of that turnover ball, effortlessly turning defence into attack, repeatedly tearing through the defence like a Frenchie attacking a plate of snails and garlic. The French team's particular brand of saloon door defence, combined with some excellent interplay in the backs provided Euan with a hat-trick of tries.

Not to be outdone, our flying winger Paul Kellett touched down for a brace of tries, carving the French to pieces with mesmeric running, and ensuring his return to the top of the try scoring table.

The game had begun well for the OCs, with some powerful driving around the fringes from the back-row leading to good field position for the backs. The driving was helped by the Frenchmen's obvious distaste for tackling any back-row players, preferring to wait until they had at least a 4 man numerical advantage before tackling. Needless to say, this meant easy yards for back-row glory hunters. It immediately became apparent that the French line-out was about as reliable as England's last week, and with Greg Kris having deserted the French ranks to join the OCs, their lineout codes were quickly broken. As such our backs consistently hoofed the ball down field, and the French were in trouble, much like in the war before our brave lads intervened to save them.

In typical French style, their heads dropped as they marched back under their posts yet again, but after the interval they were only 5 tries down, and they had come back strongly in our previous encounter, so we expected a backlash. This was quickly quashed as the pack drove the French off their own scrum, and scored immediately.

The French bounced back, and a series of forward drives set up an easy try for the right winger. Unfortunately the winger was of the Cristophe Dominici school, and instead of grounding the ball for a try, he chose to ground it over the 5 metre line instead. Quelle domage. They did score soon after that, whilst one backrow member was too busy laughing at the French's incompetence to keep an eye on the game, but this only fired up the OCs to greater feats. In time honoured fashion the French eventually crumbled, with the game held up for several minutes whilst our European cousins tried to start fights, argued with the referee, and then got started with some good old traditional yelling at their own team-mates in comedy 'Allo! 'Allo! accents. The drink might originate in France, but the only champagne on this day was supplied by the OC backs, with quick hands enabling Owen V-J to scoot down the wing for a deserved try in front of his doting family.

Overall, a great game for the entire team, and a result that correctly reflected our superiority over the French in every department. I think we drank more than them in the pub afterwards too.

Man of the match goes to Euan for his creativity in midfield and cut-throat finishing.

Rich Butler