Apologies that there ended up being no report for the last match. If Alex wasn't ill I would be delegating this to him again but here goes:

Weather and pitch worries cleared for a couple of hours this morning. This allowed another episode in the long running saga where the respective Wimbledon and Battersea coaches get on very well indeed, but the goodwill seems to fail between the respective sets of players. Despite the fractious end to the game, I think we can be proud of how well our lads dealt with the situation.

It has been a long break since our last game, and a longer one since our last friendly, so it was a bit disappointing not to have better numbers today. It has also been a very long time since we played on the up-and-down pitch. A game of two halves of course resulted, with Battersea having the better of it while playing downhill. The first real chance was ours, created by some good play from Max, allowing Matt Shaw to demonstrate his version of the Maori side-step and run over a couple of Battersea defenders. Jodi Smith, making a welcome return, began with a great steal and continued through the game with some ferocious tackling. However Battersea made good use of the slope, and from a series of phases where they comprehensively out-rucked us went over near the posts. 0- 7 down.

Wimbledon came back well, with Charlie unlucky to be pushed out on the left. We were however unable to build up any pressure from the possession we had, as we repeatedly lost the ball in the rucks. We were holding their scrum fairly well despite the slope, and starting to get the ball to our superior backs - a move out the the right was unlucky not to get a score when we knocked on. However more steady Battersea pressure saw them again out-ruck us and drive to our line, going under the posts to take us to 0 -14 down and the low point of the match. The response was immediate, Max kicking us into a good position in their half before a great move between Connor and Aaron was just pushed out. From the resulting lineout, Charlie McKibben bulldozed through their players to steal the ball and charge over the line. Converted by Archie, and Wimbledon then had the better of the last few minutes - a couple of kick-throughs not quite working out, and James McGrath (playing on the wing) putting in a memorable tackle. Half time and 7 - 14 down with the momentum (and slope) now in our favour.

The second half began well, with George standing out for a particularly strong carry and Joe putting in one of a series of good tackles. A good move out to the right got the ball into Charlies hands and again he drove over powerfully. Archies conversion took us to parity at 14-14. A couple of substitutions brought on Ellis and Matt Rogers: Ellis from the start putting in powerful runs, and Matt, returning after almost a year out, making good on his promise to flatten the Battersea fly-half. A great move starting with Archie, going to Aaron and ending up with Matt Shaw on the left was unlucky not to get a score, but we immediately switched out to the right were Matt popped up again and went over in the corner. This one not converted to put us in a 19-14 lead.

The game got rather messy at this point, not least because some of the Battersea players were starting to 'lose it'. This is a good point to remind everyone that the Surrey RFU are getting very serious indeed about backchat to referees, and players are looking at several game bans if a complaint is made. Again however, the Wimbledon players behaved very well in the circumstances. Battersea continued to pile on the pressure in the same way, with rucking that was consistently superior to ours - we will definitely have to work on this. The pressure was resisted however, with Aaron and Matt Shaw having probably their best games in a Wimbledon shirt both defensively and with the ball. We were then able to exert pressure of our own, and from a lineout on the Battersea 22 we got the ball out to Alfie (who had swapped to the Wing as James went to SH) who went over in the corner. A particularly good kick from Archie, right out on the touchline, took us to 26-14 up.

With Battersea getting tired, bad-tempered and short of front rows, the scrums went to uncontested which probably slowed our momentum. The last Battersea score came from a chargedown, reflecting the pressure they continued to exert right until the end of the game. The game was ended a couple of minutes early when a general melee threatened to break out; though the whole side came out with credit, particular mention should go to Jodi for not reacting to a ridiculous attack and to Cameron for showing good captaincy skills in defusing the situation.

High points: good hands in the backs, scrum was strong, lineout improving
Points to work on: body position in the ruck, committing sufficient players to the rucks, tackling lower