Practice Makes Perfect

This weekend, we were expecting to face London French in our much-delayed Middlesex Vase quarter final. Yet again unable to confirm arrangements with French, we instead made the short trip to Bushy Park to play Teddington 3s.

Given that we beat the same team 44-12 last season, this was always going to be a very different proposition to the close Staines game. Arriving to find a pitch dotted with standing water and a ref suspiciously lacking in society kit, it seemed that this was to be amateur rugby in its purest form.

In addition, as Teddington took to the field it was clear that their strength lay in their pack with some big ball carriers itching to make dents in our defence. However with no line breakers in their backs and unable to run around our defence, Teddington were always going to be up against it.

The emphasis from the start therefore was to ensure that we stuck to our game process come what may and to focus on the execution rather than the win.

Ten tries tells half the story as Quins were dominant in attack. Big carries from the likes of Ed, Ash and Josh combined beautifully with the dancing feet of Luke Povey, Tom Feeney, George and Paul. As a result we were had hattricks for George and Luke as well as two tries for Ed. Credit to JC for being in support of almost all of the above .... And then twice dropping the ball when his chance came.

As impressive as our attack however were the lack of line breaks and only one try for Teddington. Probably our most organised defensive effort.

This weekend we play Crags in the League semi final. Expected by many to run away with the league, Crags suffered their first defeat last weekend so will be keen to get back to winning aways and set up potential re-match against London Welsh.

That said, we ran them very close in our league game earlier this year and the team's development since then has been immense. If we put into practice what we have been training then there is no reason we can't contain them.