These things come in threes...

On Saturday 26th October, Hanwell RFC were due to travel away to play Chiswick IV's in the league.

Unfortunately, Chiswick were unable to field a team and as a result, Hanwell were awarded a walkover (0-25 win). The result lifts Hanwell up into second place in the league table.

A friendly was hastily put together and the squad met up to catch a train into town to face Belsize Park V's at Regents Park.
Unfortunately, it soon transpired that Belsize couldn't field a front row and as a result the scums were to be uncontested. In league competition, teams that cannot contest the scrums must drop a player from the field and play with 14 rather than 15. Due to the friendly nature of the game, Hanwell were happy to let Belsize play with a full quota.

As the teams began to warm up, the heavens opened and the wind blew fiercely across the park meaning the game was going to be very forward dominated.

The referee blew his whistle to begin the game and almost immediately blew it again to stop proceedings. Unfortunately, he had suffered a pulled muscle and could not carry on.

The players of both teams came together and agreed that any game was better than none and one of the home team's players pulled on the referee's jersey and the game began.
With all that had passed, perhaps it was obvious that the game would not set the world alight and it was probably due to the inexperience of the stand in referee that tempers began to rise and scuffles began to break out throughout the game.

Eventually Belsize took the spoils with a hard fought 12-0 win on a day both clubs would probably rather forget

 31st October 2013