Finsbury Park 2nd XV vs Fullerians 4th XV

On Saturday 10th September, Finsbury Park yet again made club history by commencing a league campaign for the 2nd XV for the first time.
Last season, we were fortunate enough to run two competitive teams at the same time for a total of six, ad-hoc games. The 2nd XV winning four out of those six games, whilst the 1st XV went completely undefeated in both league and cup competition.
Following on from the 2s preseason win against Millwall (match report available here), for the first league game, the 2s had the task of hosting our old mates from Fullerians at our pitch at Downhills Park.
Unfortunately, due to injury, and a full, four team’s fixtures in the calendar for Fullerians, they were only able to travel to us with 13 players. But, as we had a record 42 players available, we were able to lend players as, and when, they needed. This had the added bonus of meaning we could start with opposed scrums and that all of our subs, including some very new and inexperienced players, could get solid game time, which was hugely beneficial.
The game started tensely, and with Fullerians opting to borrow Dave Wrigley and Lau Ciocan (both wings) to complete their backline, Finsbury kicked to the visitors.
The game was played fast and very fluidly from a Finsbury perspective and with an early turnover, Finsbury were able to score a well-worked try.
Rich Hadley was again taking up the kicking duties (following up from taking this responsibility last week) and he was to have an interesting and demanding day from the kicking tee. With what turned out to be plenty of chances to practice, and with his rather unorthodox style he slotted the first one.
7-0 to Finsbury with as many minutes played.
After a long restart, the Finsbury Fly-half, Nick Tewson, smashed the ball back into the Fullerians corner and it came to our lended player Dave Wrigley to bring the ball back up. Dave is very new to rugby, having played high level baseball in Southampton, and then finding the O2 touch league to get into rugby, and then joining us to get into full contact. However, this inexperience was completely thrown out of the window when he beat not one, not two, not even three, but four tackles to eventually get tackled on the half way line. Finsbury instantly regretted lending him to Fullers! 
After a couple more carries from Fullerians, unfortunately the ball was knocked on in the tackle, the partnership of Greg ‘The Viking’ Bloom and Morgan Latrell again proving to be devastating in flowing counter attack rugby and punishing defensive lines. This subsequently lead to Finsbury being played ‘advantage’ and another score was forthcoming, touching this one down. Rich however pushed the conversion (1 from 2 from the tee). 12-0 to Finsbury.
With such a plethora of subs, Jon Dixon rolled off for another, new to rugby player, Aaron Carter stepping into the second row to partner Rich. Aaron has practised hard and in the subsequent scrum his body position was solid and against a bigger pack, Finsbury were able to win the scrum against the head! Well done Freddie Bromley (hooker). From this turnover, the Viking exploited the Fullers backs being in disarray and broker through covering tackles to gain valuable field position, before offloading into the tackle for returning scrum half Ted Coday to dot down. Teddy was a stalwart member of the team when were in our infancy (2013/14) season and it was great to see him back in the Finsbury shirt! Welcome back Teddy!
Rich slotted this conversion from in front and a bit of a rout looked like it was on the cards – 19-0 with 23 mins played.
What happened next, was a bit of a shame – on a day when the downhills pitch looked lush and green, the ground was still far too hard (in my opinion) to compete heavily, and the pitch claimed its first of many victims with the Fullerians no.5 tweaking his knee in contact. He subsequently left the field and would play no further part in the fixture. We wish him well with his recovery.
Jon stepped up to don a Fullerians shirt, so as to keep the fixture competitive and slotted into second row.
However, just 5 minutes later, the pitch again swung the axe and dropped a Finsbury Park favourite, the returning hard-man, and pack General Chris Dalby. In a seemingly innocuous step and carry, Chris caught his heel in one of the ruts and crashed to the floor. We would later learn that this was a ruptured Achilles tendon and that he will need surgery! Chris, our thoughts go out to you mate and we wish you also a speedy recovery.
This loss to Finsbury had the knock-on effect of reducing the scrum to only two recognised front row and we had no open to go unopposed – with Rich Handley stepping into Hooker.
However, the scrum was the only real area that Fullers were holding court and with the Finsbury forwards now no longer needing to exert themselves physically in the scrums, we were able to engage in the fast=paced and flowing rugby which, of late, has been destroying our opposition – today was to no exception.
Even with the lent players to bolster the numbers, Finsbury worked the ball wide well and players were off-loading in the tackle to devastating effect. Izzy Turner turned into a one-man human wrecking ball and Morgan Carter was cutting lines from his partnership with the Viking that left the Fullerians back line is disarray.
As the game went away from them, Fullerians played with heart and passion and credit to them for sticking with it. Finsbury raised the tempo of the game even higher and really played well as a team. Teddy scored another two to complete his hat-trick, Izzy got two and Mike Godfrey, Dave Carter and Mike O’Donovan scored (on his Finsbury debut!) to take the game well out of reach.
The last two tries for Finsbury were really quite spectactular, and credit to the players who were involved in the build up to each. A lot of pressure has been put onto the players from the coaching staff about exploiting gaps and creating chances for each other, and the try scored by Stephen Partridge (15) was exactly that. A line break from Morgan, and offload in the subsequent tackle to Liam Todd and Liam then having the wherewithal to stand up the full back and wait for him to commit before flicking the simplest of passes to Steve who ran in un touched (he still did his stupid celebration though) under the posts. Try number 10. And with Rich converting this one (5 from 10) that made the score 60 – 7 with about 5 minutes left.
Finsbury have always prided themselves on being a club full of honest and easy going individuals who are accepting and warm to any player who pitches up. This is epitomised by Lau Ciocan. Lau is a 30-something Romanian guy who pitched up to training halfway through last season. He had NEVER played rugby or any sort of contact sport before, but having seen rugby on the TV, thought he would give it a try. Having had the odd 10 minutes here and there at the tail end of last season, and looking like a fish out of water for most of the time, he stuck himself into preseason training this year with new bite and passion. He’s always asking questions and always trying to better himself and it was my absolute pleasure to watch him stay wide and create the overlap that led to the eleventh Finsbury Try and his first in a competitive game. Leaving the space sucked in the last man into contact and the wide and floating pass from Morgan was taken well by Lau, who raced for the try line. His smile and general demeanour summarising a cracking performance from the 2s to start the season off with a bang. Final Score 65-7.
On a final note, we don’t expect the return fixture against Fullerians to be quite so one sided and we commend them for not only travelling to us with 13 players, but also not giving up until the ref had blown the final whistle.
Next week the 2s have the rather daunting task of travelling up to Harpenden, who we know well from a fixture three years ago. It should be a real battle.

Team sheet
1. Chris Dalby
2. Izzy Turner
3. Alex Thomas
4. Rich Hadley
5. Jon Dixon
6. Micheal O’Donovan
7. Morgan Lattrell Carter
8. Anthony Gait
9. Ted Coday
10. Nick Tewson
11. Mike Godfrey
12. Shey Vincenzie
13. Greg Bloom
14. David Carter
15. Stephen Partridge
Subs
16. Dave Wrigley
17. Liam Todd
18. Joe Darragh
19. Alex Wells
20. Lau Ciocan
21. Aaron Carter