London Scottish hosted Battersea in the latest U14s Surrey Waterfall match on Sunday the 26th.  Battersea scored first at a cold Kings House ground, but Scottish quickly evened up through a combination of hard work from the forwards and good tactical running from the backs.  Omar and Nate ran hard all afternoon from the back row, whilst Will Malcolm provided excellent service to the backs on his return from injury – his taped fingers certainly didn’t hamper the speed of his passing.

In what set the scene for a great game of cat and mouse Battersea then scored their second, but were again quickly met with an emphatic response from our boys as we crossed the line following some quick hands in the centre from Vinay, a typically incisive run from Taylor and then a great offload to Will Pinney hitting the ball at speed.  We kicked our first conversion of the Waterfall so far and so went in at the first break 2 points up.

It was brilliant to see the revival of oranges brought onto the pitch, meaning that the boys came back revitalised and up for the close encounter that it was clear we were in.  The second section saw some outstanding tackling from Ethan, Ishaq and Andrew, the latter on his match debut and making at least one try-saving intervention.  In the pack we also saw Tom make his debut for London Scottish, who had an immediate impact with the strength of his carrying and work at the breakdown.  Alfie had a great game at No.8 again, tackling everything in sight and providing extra go-forward with his pick-ups from the base of the scrum.

Gabriel also played his first game for the blues on Sunday and demonstrated what an adept passer of the ball he is.  Jacob and Martin continued their hard work at the breakdown and scrum, where Battersea were putting us under most pressure through the game.  Max was also hard on the shoulder of whoever was in possession, whilst Marvin similarly never let up in taking the game to Battersea.  He is developing into an excellent asset on the left wing.

All agreed that it was a great game of rugby played in the perfect spirit, and it sets London Scottish up well for the final three matches of the series.