Upper Clapton 10 Wenden 5

Unbeaten Wendon travelled to UCFC on Saturday for their first league game away from "Fortress Newport". And after just a few minutes it was clear to the home side why the new club from north Essex had won both of their opening matches in this season's merit tables.

Wendon began at a lightning pace whilst Clapton seemed to be continuing their warm up. Soon the visitors took the lead but missed the conversion. This gave Clapton the wake up call they needed and the home side began to be much more competitive around the tackle and ruck. It was at one such ruck that Maskell saw space on the blindside which he attacked and, finding himself behind the Wendon defence, was able to stretch those little legs to out sprint the cover to level the score. Ross Stalley chipped over the conversion to take the score to 7 - 5.

The game then entered a long period of attritional rugby with neither team creating clear chances and both defences dominating. As the match wore on and more and more of the game was played in the Wendon half, Clapton adopted the strategy of forcing Wendon to attack from deep. With the defences on top, any clean ball taken by Clapton was punted through or over the oncoming defenders forcing Wendon to turn and begin their attacks from within their 22. Eventually Clapton were awarded a penalty which Stalley sent drifting just wide of the right hand post. Soon after he bagged the 3 points on offer from a similar kick to increase the pressure on Wendon to score. With 10 minutes to play Clapton were able contain Wendon's final efforts although a last gasp break out almost paid off for the away side.

This was a different kind of performance to those seen in previous weeks. The need to grind out the victory relied on everyone playing as a team and maintaining cool heads in defence. This was a more complete team performance against the best side faced so far this season - the return game will be interesting!

Team - Hunt; Maasdorp; Carroll; Green; Gardner; M Sweeney; Wendon Guest; (Rep Peermamode); Paris; Maskell (capt); R Stalley; Preston; Furlong; Eales; Ben-Bruise; Creavey.

Man of the Match - John Gardner (even though he later admitted to being lazy!)