Black Horse 17 UCFC II 43

Clapton went into this game on the back of a big win against Hitchin and with a clear message from Capt Carroll not to rest on their laurels: Black Horse promised to a different proposition to the side the A XV faced last week. This Clapton side has a good mix of old heads and youthful innocence and the mix is beginning to show great promise for the coming months.

As expected Black Horse started as a home side should - lots of direct running and attempts to bulldoze their way through the Clapton defence. Horse came close on several occasions but last gasp tackles or errors by attackers resulted in all attempts to grab the lead failing. Having weathered the early storm, Clapton began to develop some structure to their game and they eventually forced a penalty offence close to the posts which Ross Stalley chipped over to give Clapton the lead. From the restart Horse returned to trying to batter their way toward Clapton's line using their large and rather useful fly half. Eventually a try came but the conversion was missed, taking the score to 5 -3. At this point Tom Creavey began to get involved in the game.

Playing at Full Back Creavey had been rather anonymous in the early stages but as Clapton began to show more composure in possession a clearance kick from Horse bounced kindly into the well positioned Creavey's hands. A dart forward, a skip around one man in black, a waltz around another, a straigtening of his run and then a drift outside took Creavey past all the slow moving traffic and onto a course for his first try of the day. A few minutes later Adam Ayers intercepted a loose pass from a Horse player, made about five meters in ground then realised he still had 50 to go. A swift 'chuck' to the right (with more than a hint of a forward bounce of the ball) and Creavey was there to collect and outpace numerous defenders to grab his second try of he half. Stalley converted at least one of these tries before a third was scored and the ref confirmed the half time score as 5 - 19 to Clapton - though for the life of me I cannot work out how.

The second half saw Clapton facing the wind and playing with the expectation that Horse would play the percentage game and kick to the corners. But no, they continued with their confrontational style except this time some of their older heads tried to intimidate the younger Clapton lads in the hope that discipline would fail. Laudibly the visitors stuck to their guns and whilst they sometimes got sucked into verbal exchanges they also kept their shape. By now the backs were begining to believe in their ability to work the ball around their opposite numbers. At almost every opportunity the backs tried something different - a crash up the middle, a straight spin or a miss-move. Ross Stalley controlled the line well and Cameron Furlong and Danny Smith had increasing success in the centre as a good understanding developed between them. Whilst in the forwards Nick Lindsell, Tom Peters, George Paris and Matt Sweeney stood out.

In effect the second period was a story of Horse fighting to stay in touch with a Clapton side that was never less that three tries ahead of them. With 20 minutes to play the score appeared to be stuck at 17 - 36 and close enough for Horse to rescue a result. But a final try finally ended the home side's chances of a win 17 - 43.

So it's two wins from three and another tough game next week at home against Wendon.

Squad: Peters; Ayers; Carroll (Rep Harlow New Boy 40 mins); Green; Peermamode; Sweeney; Lindsall; Paris; Baccerra; R Stalley; Preston; Furlong; Smith; S Stalley; Creavey.