Hammersmith and Fulham vs Harlequins Amateurs
A cold crisp winters day as Hammersmith 3s travelled to suburbia to face Harlequins amateurs. Despite the long journey and the cold weather the boys were up for it as the benefits of Dry Jan were clear and meant the numbers of hangovers were at an all-time low. James Lalor got his DoD performance off to a good start with a dislocated finger in the warm up, with the finger clicked back in place, Captain Cook got the boys going with a much needed warm-up.
Hammers were out the blocks quickly with a brutal break from Ed Miller but when he was tackled on the 22 meter line just short but Mike Cook was on hand with a great supporting line to run it in for the final metres with the ball. The boys knew the next task was to secure the ball and exit our 22 but with a few handling errors due to cold hands and a miss match in the backline Harlequins went over for a soft try. Hammersmith quickly bounced back with a solid forwards try from a catch and drive lineout five meters out the maul was unstoppable and Captain cook was at the back to dot down his easiest try of the game. A line out on the half way line came quickly off the top and a cracking move from the backs involving both wingers with Billy Wickham just being stopped short of the line and Cook again was on hand in support to dive over from the 5. This ensured Cookie managed to seal the easiest hat-trick the game has ever seen inside 40 minutes ! The Hammers knew this was going to be there game but it didn’t help when James Lalor then nailed down his DoD status by making a low tackle and bouncing off to then throw his arms around the attacker’s head/neck and receive a soft yellow card! The lads managed to hold off conceeding any more try before half time
Half Time 7 – 21
A comfortable half time score and a couple of substitutions meant a bit
of disarray let Harlequins get the first score of the second half or so they thought only for there 12 to decide to just keep running forgetting you have to put the ball down before the dead-ball line, an easy let off for the hammers. Hammers started going through the gears and a great break by Jack MacGreogor resulted in and another interesting referee call gave Hammersmith a penalty deep inside their own 22. Then in his own word number 9 Nick Emmett “quick tapped and split through the defence, with just the 15 to beat stood him up with a chahoo goose step and glided past to dot down in the corner.”
Then some cold hands and poor tackling let Harlequins back into the game when their prop looking number 10 danced through our defence to touch down a try the whole team was disappointed about.
The old guard of Steve Harris and Ed Clark rallied the boys and a sharp queen ball by Hammersmith on their own 22 gave Cookie his final try and a try he deserved the most, when he broke through the inital tackle and was free with only the fullback to step, he somehow managed to run the length of the pitch. This was followed by tries from Tom Mohan, Ryan Grey and a 90m intercept try from Shagga to run the length of the pitch on his return to action for months.
Chad Buchner put the final nail in the Harlequins coffin when he got the ball on their 22m line and handed off their Fullback with a choke slam straight out of WWE and sprint to touch down under the posts.
Strong performance all around and a well-deserved win!
Final Score: 59 – 14
MoM: Tom Mohan
DoD: James Lalor
