No ambulances required in the rearranged fixture with US Portsmouth, and the mighty Es come away with the win!

We had pretty much our best training session ever on Thursday, which gave high hopes for today’s game. This game had everything, and the nerves of both sides were evident from the first whistle; dropped balls, shonky passes, and every other type of fluffed lines in the first 5-10 minutes… from both sides!!

A break in play allowed a bit of calm to be restored so we could get back to business. I might be wrong, but I don’t recall a missed tackle from our boys, as they hunted in packs and weren’t bothered about using multiple players to stop a ball-carrier. There were multiple turnovers won at the ruck, with Harry A, Josh, and Jamie really putting a stamp on that area.

First half tackles on the near touch line by Ben and later Tommy saved probable tries, and the tackling off the scrum was great, with Isaac putting himself about like a demon.

James put in some great work at fullback today with great awareness and defensive play, complemented by the funniest try to round off the first half. With acres of space to run into, he didn’t quite believe it was ‘on’, slowing a couple of times, before the penny dropped and he lit the after-burners to fly over for our first score.

5-0 up at half time…

Second half started similar to the first, with snatchy handling errors from both sides, but no real difference between them. Then, as we began to get into our rhythm they broke through with only a last ditch effort preventing them from scoring in the corner (RIP corner flag). Soon after though, US Portsmouth bundled over for a try which was then converted, but only after a mild outbreak of handbags threatened to affect our concentration and discipline.

ERRFC 5 - 7 US Portsmouth

There then followed a short period of hilarity, where US Portsmouth had a penalty kick which didn’t reach touch, and Cam W decided not to catch the ball but hit it on the full volley - drilling it like an Exocet straight at Jamie, who caught it and ran at a US side who couldn’t quite work out what they had just seen. Whatever works Cam, ‘you do you’ son ?

We steadily worked our way up the pitch, finding ourselves about 15m out from the opposition try line…

We’ve got far too many Harrys in the side already, otherwise Josh could get the nickname ‘Harry Styles’ because he’s only got One Direction… forward. A burst off the base of a ruck and Josh made up enough ground in one hit to create the opportunity for Jamie to snipe over the line in the next phase.

Final score: ERRFC 10 - 7 US Portsmouth.

Other news: we are thinking about nominating one of the team to be ‘Master of Wedgies’. This will mean that each week, if we see anyone running with the ball in one hand we will be able to have the MoW administer a wedgie for such misdemeanours.

Well done boys, loved every minute of watching that one so I forgot to take any pictures til we got in the car!