Twickenham U14’s Match Summary
Twickenham Finchley	v	12 Oct 2006	League
		Home	Won (19 – 7)

Finchley visited Parkfields on a bright and chilly Remembrance Sunday to challenge the Twickenham RFC Under 14s in the latest league game.  After the long trip to Bedford two weeks previously and with the England team losing to Argentina the previous afternoon, a large crowd had assembled and a home win was needed to lift our spirits.  Your correspondent came ill-equipped for the task of compiling the match report, but managed to capture all the detail of a tight game on two Post It notes.

Steve won the toss and elected to play into the breeze, forcing the teams to change ends and adding the first bit of edge to the contest.  As the sun emerged from the horizon, Finchley kicked off and the game stuttered for the first ten minutes with neither side managing to get the upper hand.  The contest up front was tough with Finchley having several sizeable forwards who were ably kept in check by the Twickenham eight.  Both sides made a number of handling errors and neither was able to dominate.

With 15 minutes gone, Twickenham won the breakdown on the halfway line and the ball was sent down the line with James bursting through and taking a pass from Bill.  James turned on the afterburners and scorched through the Finchley defence on his way to the left hand corner.  With opponents left in his wake, there was a loud gasp as he was bundled into touch five metres out from their line.  Many spectators expressed surprise that someone had actually managed to catch him.  Finchley won the line out and cleared their lines.

Our lads began to look more menacing and pitched their tents in the opposition twenty two metre area.  Harry and Jay making a number of half breaks and threatening to break through.  A period of five minutes of pressure ensued, but no points were put on the board.  Finchley broke out down the left and the Twickenham defence was stranded.  As the Finchley back cut back in field a despairing,but wonderfully executed  tap tackle from Jay brought him down.  The forwards won the ball at the breakdown and it was cleared to safety.

A minute later saw another Finchley breakaway down the left again as they collected the ball on half way and charged down the left touchline, avoiding the defence and scoring under the posts.  The try was converted and Finchley went 7-0 up and the Twickenham coaching team demonstrated their fine and, probably unrivalled, command of expressive English.  James, suffering from back problems was replaced by Andrew.  The exhortations of the Twickenham coaching team worked as the forwards won the ball at a breakdown and Alex See whipped out the ball to Harry.  Fine passing from Harry, Bill and Olly saw the ball arrive at Sam on the right wing.  Sam looked his opponent in the eye and then skinned him on the outside, racing in under the posts and leaving despairing Finchley defenders floundering in this wake.  Harry converted and the scores were even at 7-7.  The half time whistle blew and both sides went into the interval with honours even.

With Rhys replacing Alex Rose who had collected an elbow from an opposing forward, Twickenham began to exert some concentrated pressure.  Harry was breaking through tackle after tackle when he had the ball and tackling every opposition player when he didn't.  Jay began to win more and more in the loose, Bill was very active and aggressive with Joe beginning to control things from number eight.  At a good position inside the Finchley half on the left created by breaks from Joe and Bill, Luke replaced Sam on the left wing.  From an excellent attacking scrum, Alex went down the narrow side and passed to Luke.  Luke pinned back his ears and went over in the corner for a scorching try.  The conversion was narrowly missed and Twickenham led the game for the first time, 12-7.

There was then a period of frantic Twickenham defence as Finchley broke through and camped five metre from our line.  Heroic and tenacious defence from all the team kept Finchley out.  Finchley had a series of attacking scrums five metres out from the Twickenham line, but failed to score as a result of hard tackling and ferocious mauling, rucking and tackling.  The result was far from settled and Twickenham cleared their lines to halfway.  Finchley won the line out, but Bill managed to scrag their inside centre and rip the ball off him.  Bill broke clear for ten metres and passed to Harry on his left.  Harry took the move forward another ten metres and passed to Luke in support on his left.  With twenty two metres to go, Luke shrugged off the desperate Finchley defence and went through for his second of the day.  Harry converted from wide out with a great kick.  The score widened to 19-7.

Little time was left, but Finchley kicked off.  After a couple of minutes of battle up front, Finchley kicked over the top and the ball fell to Andrew.  Andrew calmly and lazily punted the ball into touch and the ref blew the final whistle.

Another triumph for our lads that will keep them in the top three in the league.  Despite our jangling nerves, the boys deserved to win a tenacious, hard fought, but evenly contested game.  All credit to both sides and the ref who had an excellent game.

Richard Wheatley

	Twickenham	Finchley
Final score:	19	7
Half-time score:	7	7
Tries:	3	1
Penalty Tries:	0	0
Conversions: (Successful / Attempted)	2 / 3	1 / 1
Penalty Goals: (Successful / Attempted)
Drop Goals: (Successful / Attempted)