Kings College II 39 vs Greenwich II 12
Saturday 4th October

Line Up: Nick Wallden, Tony Smith, Sam Knapp, Stuart Frost, Ross Knapp, Sam Nutland, Gerrard Vallely, Ross Phillimore, Bruno Boucherikha, Stuart Winfield, Uf Hasan, John Lambie, Dave Rainbird, Koso Keys, Billy Ford Subs: James Lambert, Danny O’Niel, Richard Hatch, Ray Bianci, James Barker, Dave Winfield

Greenwich’s 2nd XV travelled to Dulwich for their first league fixture of the season against Kings College 2nd XV. With probably the strongest 2nd XV Greenwich have put out in a few years confidence was high before the game that the season would start with a positive result.

Despite keeping the score to 10-5 for the first 20 minutes the experience of a well drilled Kings team started to show as they pulled away with Greenwich finding it hard to get themselves back into the game. Hopefully the know-how and fitness will start to improve as this almost new team start to gel and learn to play together.

Yet another try from Stuart Winfield showed he can score no matter which team he plays with. With 3 trys in 3 weeks he’s proving to be a very useful player and is gaining confidence at fly half. His partnership with Bruno Boucherikha is benefiting the 2nd team greatly. Bruno also had another good game showing a willingness to make some very damaging breaks. Hopefully a bit more patience and some improved mobility in the forwards and Greenwich will start to be able to take advantage of the good field position they’re finding. A solid performance from try scorer Uf Hasan at inside centre added some much needed experience to the back line with Ray Bianci also adding to this experience at half time. Billy Ford did well after having his nose plastered across his face early in the second half to keep tackling strongly until the final whistle and John Lambie and Dave Rainbird showed their continual improvement at outside centre and wing respectively.

The pack once again were completely dominent once again with Sam Knapp putting in another solid scrummaging performance next to the experience of Tony Smith and Nick Wallden. James Lambert making his debut at half time could have weakend the front row, but to his credit he put in a very strong 2nd half and the pack continued to push kings backward winning a number of scrums against the head. As with the strong field position Greenwich were finding in loose play, with a bit more game time together they should start to take advantage of their packs dominance

The disappointment at the end of the game showed the standards the 2nd XV have this season but it masked the positive parts of the game that Greenwich had and the actual improvement in performance from that against Southwark two weeks earlier. Lets see these performances start turning into points.


Scorers: Trys-Uf Hasan, Stuart Winfield Cons-Uf Hasan

Men of the Match: 3 Bruno Boucherikha 2 Stuart Winfield 1 Uf Hasan