For the first time this year the mighty Finsbury Park dusted off the keys, swung open the heavy iron gates, and descended the treacherous stone stairs into Dungeon Downhills. What poor souls would meet their maker today? The unwitting Whitton Lions lay in their path, their numbers bolstered by some of Park’s finest players and also Aslan.

The game started scrappily with the Fins fumbling possession twice and losing a scrum against the head. Perhaps sensing the nerves in the ranks, fullback James Stables, George MacDuff’s favourite bloke, chipped over the defence and regathered before selling Aslan with his eyes and scoring the first try.

Aslan and Charlie managed some big carries for the opposition as Whitton looked to get back into the game with their powerful forwards breaking the line, but the home team soon began to fall into gear.

The danger of George SP standing in the midfield drew the attention of the Lions’ pack at the lineout, allowing the other forwards to execute a textbook maul from 20m out, Fred Bromley finishing off from close range.

From there the boys well and truly reached into the back of the metaphorical cupboard and found the multipack of tries that we were supposed to use earlier this season, facilitated by sweet running lines from Charlie and Sam. The pick of these was a worldie form James Stables, weaving and dodging through the whole Whitton team like he was Harry Wilkinson-Roberts trying to avoid paying match fees. Gwillam also probably did a quick tap and dummy at some point, who can remember.

After the break the second half began much more evenly with the Lions able to set a more solid platform, aided by Billy and FP stalwart Paddy. They were able to string together multiple phases on the Fins line, and score a couple of well worked tries.

The arrows responded well, building phases in the forwards, which allowed fly half Will to unleash the more accelleratorily endowed members of the team to run in some super slick tries.

The final whistle brought wild celebrations from the FP ultras on the sidelines, with even famously dour and bad-tempered captain Urban cracking a wry smile.

Plenty of good, some things to work on, but an all-round successful afternoon in the dungeon of dreams.

Final Score: FP 67 - 24 Whitton

MOTMs: Sam (H) & Billy (A)
DOTDs: Aslan (H&A)