1st XV match reports

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Basingstoke 7 London Scottish 17

Not much can or should be read into pre-season friendlies. The previous event – at home to Rosslyn Park - was more trial than match, and with almost 30 players involved, resembled one of those England football affairs under Mr Eriksson, where pretty much no one who stared was allowed to finish.

At Basingstoke, the regulation 22 were chosen, and the rush of replacements didn't come till the hour mark, and selection was made easier by the unavailability of half a dozen for one reason or another. Terry O’Connor and his coaching team will at least have learned much about how planned combinations work and what the summer work achieved.

Not that summer was the season in evidence. Indeed the squad found themselves practicing for the sort of conditions they surely won’t face again until November or even March – a gusting wind bringing alternate sunny spells and lashing, near-horizontal squalls of rain; the lottery it made of kicking was the least of the problems it caused; both sides found it hard to judge even the pitch of a landing ball and at times relatively short passes were whisked askew enough for them to fail. Relevance to the conditions likely to be found in the coming weeks may be slight.

So a 17-7 win over the side who placed fourth last time out at the same level - South East One equivalent to London One – and who beat last season’s promoted divisional runners-up, is not to be decried.

Scottish started on the back foot with the wind generally in their faces and as expected in such conditions, spent much of the half digging trenches deep in their own 22. Against beefy opponents who nevertheless lacked a cutting edge, they did well not only to survive unscathed, but also to get out of their own territory just enough times not only to vary the plot but to build a surely unassailable lead.

They were helped by the home tight head losing his cool and being yellow-carded for a punch by a generous referee. A man short, the home defence quickly sprang leaks and on a rare break upfield Rory Greenslade-Jones cut in from his lonely wing and made the decisive jinking run before putting in Clynton Jancke. Tom Williams bounced his conversion attempt back off the post,

Jancke then ended another period of siege by forcing a turnover and sending faster colleagues away, but the new former Stourbridge man Ross Yiend couldn’t capitalise and was swallowed by the second tier of cover.

But the score was extended when former Barnes centre Efron Heather linked with Peel to take up from another turnover. The break broke down ten metres out but half the defence was off-side at that breakdown and from a tap penalty Alex Alesbrook celebrated his first proper match as captain by skipping over near enough to the posts for Williams to force the kick over.

Scottish had also blooded other debutants – former Army prop Melvin Lewis, former London Welsh back rower David Ramsay and for the last half an hour, lock Ben Butler, all of whom can be expected to feature heavily this season.

If 12-0 against the wind looked promising, things looked even better when Stuart Peel, switching to full-back for the second period, picked his time and angle perfectly to collect the ball and hit the line, after good early work from Heather and Jancke and a defence splitting burst from Greenslade-Jones. Williams looked on as the wind failed to bend his kick between the posts as anticipated.

However that was it. Good chances were spurned – Peel’s pass to Chris Webb went into touch with the line begging, Alesbrook had to pick up too soon when a five metre scrum – chosen in reward for a penalty – looked set to trundle over the line before losing momentum. The pack had deserved better, since the one constant throughout was the visitors’ domination of the tight.

Basingstoke reduced the margin with a try and a conversion with five minutes to go. The result was in any case irrelevant, the main benefit to both teams being 80-odd minutes of keen contest available for further study on the home side’s video.

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