A good turnout today, despite it being the start of half-term. With the late pull-out by Wasps, we were fortunate to get a short-notice fixture against Old Reigatians. They are currently topping division 4 and we thought this would be a good chance to see how competitive in the league our Bs would be if we could raise the numbers for two squads. Welcome to new player Conor Coleman who made a good start at flanker today.

The initial 10 minutes were quite even, as Wimbledon struggled to strike a rhythm. Good runs from Matt Shaw and Elliot Phillips gained ground; when Reigatians pushed us back then vital tackles were made by Alex Browning and Eslam Djennad. As we slowly gained the upper hand, the forwards drove over for Alex Browning to score. Cameron Wilkinson converted to take us to 7-0 up. A warmup injury had seen Jack Blyth forced to retire early at scrum-half. Angus Bonner stepped in to the gap, and put in some storming runs before picking up at the back of a ruck, finding a gap in the Reigatians line and driving through to score over on the left. The difficult conversion was missed to leave us at 12-0 up.

Further pressure pushed us over the line again soon afterwards, and Eslam was unlucky to lose the ball before he could touch it down. However another strong series of runs from the forwards followed, and Eslam Djennad was not to be denied this time. A fine conversion from Cameron took us to 19-0 up. One of the negatives on the day was that some strong runs were not supported closely enough. One such run from Jack Gleeson shortly afterwards did not result in a try for that reason. As Reigatians came back in with an attack in our half, a crunching tackle by Eslam won the ball. Great work by Cameron released James Waghorn to score in the corner and take us to half time at 24-0 up.

The second half started without quite the same pattern as the first had ended on, despite only one change being made. The standout contributions from the forwards were a great charge-down by Jonathan Gallagher, and a dummy from Ellis Morgan that had the gallery of subs cheering. In the backs, Matt Shaw and Elliot Phillips made more fine runs. Try-line fever was spreading through the team by now, and some fine chances to add to the score were missed as overlaps were ignored. However, eventually some good work by Cameron again released James Waghorn to go over in the corner, converted to take us to 31-0. Cameron was then unfortunately injured, and Archie took over for the last 5 minutes of the game at fly half. After an excellent bit of rucking by Eslam, Archie nearly scored with his first touch of the ball. But the final score was added by the forwards, this time Jonathan Gallagher with a classic number 8 try picked up at the back of the scrum and driven over in the corner. Archie Watkins slotted the difficult conversion and the final score was 38-0.

The question about how our Bs would fare in a league had been answered with some certainty. We have heard about a few new players who will possibly join us - please all keep asking your schoolmates, and next season we may be able to enter two teams.

Martin