On another cold afternoon, and on a heavy pitch, London Scottish continued to play fast, attacking rugby scoring seven tries in their win over neighbours Teddington.
After a late start, as some of the players got caught in traffic, play started with Scottish putting pressure on Teddington from the kick off.
After going through a couple of phases the ball was shipped left along the backline. Three pairs of hands later it found Rocco on the wing. His basketball skills came to the fore as, with no room to run in, he palmed the ball back inside and into the arms of Jackson at outside centre. Jackson then broke through the scrambling cover defence to score a try in the corner. A difficult conversion fell short.
Teddington restarted and made good ground themselves, putting some good phases together. In no time they were up to the Scottish line. However, good defence from the Scots pushed Teddington back to the 22m line where they earned a scrum. From the solid scrum (where Spencer was making his debut at loose head prop) the ball came back through the twins at half back. Spotting that Teddington were up fast in defence, cutting off the option via the centres, Liam exploited the gap behind the centres and Scottish were in behind the defence. A delayed pass from Liam took out the last defender and gave Gabrielle a clear run for a try on the left. Ted duly added the conversion to take the Scots lead to 12-0.
The restart followed the same pattern as before, with Teddington making their way up to inside the Scottish 22m. Scottish gained the ball, but the touch kick went straight to Teddington who rumbled over from short yardage to take the score to12-5.
Scottish turn to restart, and they worked their way into an attacking scrum. Tom made a sniping break from scrum half, again exploiting the gap behind the Teddington line who were again up fast. Cameron followed up with a good support line took the pass from Tom and scored under the posts. Ted converted and took the score to 19-5.
The next score came from the Scots putting pressure on the Teddington line, where another kick out form defence was charged down and Will followed up to take the score. 24-5. The next try came after three phases of play took the ball to the left touchline. It came back, through quick hands in the backs, and resulted in a try on the right.
The final score of the half was a beautiful try from a good lineout. Teddington again came up fast in defence leaving holes, and Liam again exploited the gap and scored, with Ted converting to take London Scottish into the break 36-5 up.
The second half started poorly for the guys, and they took a long time to get back into their stride, often trying too hard resulting in the final pass going to ground, or the runner getting isolated and giving up possession. Teddington, meanwhile, had not given up on the match, and duly earned a try themselves which they converted. This was then followed up with another one out on the right, with the Scottish slow to get back into position and provide a defence. That took the scores to 36-17 and the game was not over.
In the end, a break from Thomas got the Scots back on track. It looked like he would score himself but was brought down with a great tackle. Quick ball gave Tom a chance which he took and Ted added the conversion. No further scores, and the final score was 43-17 to Scottish.
All credit to Teddington, who having topped their division, showed great character throughout the match, but in the end London Scottish U16’s had done more than enough to run out comfortable winners.
