League action against the Black Baa Baas

The game started with the Baa Baas pushing hard to score early, but the Hanwell defensive line held firm.
It took more than 20 minutes for the deadlock to be broken, when the away side put together some good phases of play to force their way over the line to score out wide. With the conversion missed, Hanwell restarted and started to put some good strong phases of play together, leading to another long period of stalemate.

During this period, there were a lot of scrums - an area (along with the lineouts) - that Hanwell were much the better side.
The Baa Baas countered Hanwell's dominance by pushing early at the engagement, resulting in lots of reset scrummages.
Despite the away side's use of the 'dark arts', Hanwell generally held their own and often stole ball against the head.

At the midway point of the first half, the visitors were lucky not to have their hooker sin binned for throwing a punch at Hanwell prop, Pete Nolan directly in front of the referee. However, the offence was deemed to only require a 'talking to' and the game continued.

Unfortunately, the ball at the home sides set piece wasn't 'clean' enough to unleash Hanwell's backline and it was the visitors who scored again, using their forwards to suck in the home side's defenders and then throwing the ball out wide.

Once again the conversion was missed and at half time the score was Hanwell 0 Black Baa Baas 10.

The second half was almost a carbon copy of the first, with both sides putting pressure on each other. The turning point being when the hosts had winger Jack Ryan sin binned for a trip. Reduced to 14, the away team scored twice more and by converting one, the final score was 22-0 to the Baa Baas.

The game was a disappointment for the home team, who have now suffered two defeats in a row.

Next up, Hanwell visit Tolworth to take on their friends, CSSC Barbarians.

26th November 2013