Lordswood travelled away to play on the pristine pitch of the Blackheath Sports Club.
A pitch that would suit Lordswood more than it did Askeans.
Score 85-7
The game started off very quickly with a couple of nervous mistakes from Lordswood allowing the home side to pin us in our 22. Though the initial nerves soon wore off, Lordswood realising our set piece dominance immediately.
The first try saw Stephen Chapman collect a grubber kick in behind our defence line, deep in our 22. He then sliced through and around the entire Askeans team only to be tackled by their scrambling 10, in the tackle he managed a soft inside offload to the supporting bulldozer….sorry Dave Evans. Evans ran in his first try of the game from our half, sitting down 2 askeans defenders in the process. That being the first of 5 tries for Evans.
The game continued much the same way for the rest of the first half, with Lordswood exerting dominance at every chance. Lots of pressure in line outs and many scrums won against the head.
One scrum saw the Lordswood pack march Askeans back over their try line for a calm and easy score for John Richardson at No.8.

The second half started the same way as the first half, with some silly decisions made by Lordswood in our 22, which handed Askeans a couple of soft penalties. The Askeans pressure eventually told and provided the wake up call needed, as the opposition 10 jinked through the Lordswood defence near the breakdown and ran under the posts.
Lordswood came back from that disappointing score with a ruthless edge, seeing Mark Dorman and Tom Dallas running through the Askeans defensive line with ease on numerous occasions.

Lots of credit must go to a developing Lordswood team that, historically, would have kept the ball in the forwards and kept the game tight when experiencing so much power. This game was different however and we kept our shape as best as possible and utilised the full potential of our squad. Which is demonstrated with tries scored from all areas of the pitch.
Tries:
Dave Evans – 5
Tom Dallas – 2
Stephen Chapman – 2
Callum Watkins
Mark Dorman
John Richardson
Ben Butler
Conversions:
James Dorman – 10

To describe each try would be to write a novel, and so this brief summary must suffice. The video can be watched on our linked youtube channel that is run by Marc Jacobs. Search for Lordswood RFC.

To be fair to Askeans, they never once stopped playing and always wanted to compete with us, they managed to keep their heads up and fight on when many a team would have given up, something every player and team can admire.

Man of the match could have gone to 3 people with Mark Dorman and Dave Evans being so destructive to the Askeans defence, but Tom Dallas was named for a great all-round performance, taking the front foot when needed and leading the team.