We hosted Orpington on a typical October Day, pushing 30 degrees and not even a hope of rain. So with the sun beating down, and the ground rock hard we took to the warm up. Yet another positive this year was that most of the team were out early and ready to go for the warm up, not that it was needed in that heat.

As the game approached Ash turned up with the 2nd version of our new kit, it was refreshing to wear a shirt number I could count to without it swamping me. So the game kicked off with Brocks looking forward to improving on last week’s disappointing loss. We kicked off and came under some early pressure from Orpington, which resulted in a lineout on our 22, from said line out, Orpington got up well and there ten sold the defensive line with a dummy to score under the posts, which he converted easily. Again unlike last year we were determined not to let the early try get to us and responded well with a try from Chris, following some impressive scrum work from the ever improving pack, the returning El Capitan adding the two. Then came a counter attack from Orpington, how they managed to have a 5 on 3 overlap in their own 22 I’ll never know. That 2nd try seemed to get to us a bit more than the first and we started arguing amongst ourselves, mainly me and shoulders unfairly bitching at the backs, who committed a few handling errors and got pinged a couple of times for crossing, but at least the backs are playing with confidence to try these things (moves i think there called) and they will work the more we practice them in training. Then after some solid attack play Brocks find themselves edging into Orpington’s territory, the came Orpington’s moment of madness, clearly unhappy at being out rucked there big 2nd row decided he needed an extra 10 minutes rest and punched/slapped shoulders (i think i was at the bottom of said ruck), the nine who was offside more than Fletch soon joined the 2nd row in the bin. Using the extra men well Brocks got the ball out wide after another strong brocks scrum for Chris Orford to touchdown again, again converted by El Capitan. The ten was obviously missing his scrum half so swapped places in the bin with the returning 2nd row.

A very welcomed break then came, and slug decided to keep the line-up the same for the 2nd half. So out we went and as I looked around it was interesting to see them look the more tired off the two teams especially in the forwards - in my time at brocks I could never have said that before. We went at Orpington at the off, who despite a front row replacement were still struggling up front, they resorted to kicking the ball over the top. This was then superbly rammed back down their throats by Mowgli, Chris Orford and James Huxted. When they did finally run it, the back row and centres made up for missing the ten in the first half with big hits. Alex Wynne-Williams got his customary try again converted, Then Mr Adam Holt somehow found himself on the wing, I was giving it my all to support him but that pass was never going to come, from the resulting clearance we had a line out deep in there half, which was fumbled to Sean Oliver, who had myself and John Fabian in support but again that was a pass that was never going to come, thankfully he beat the fullback to touch down, again well converted by Ian Bender. Then Alex Wynne-Williams was injured and much to my horror it looked as if Antony Little was going to replace him at number 8, thankfully that task was given to Michael Fletcher, and with Little as a back row we were even more dominant at the scrum, to the point where the Orpington front row disappeared from one scrum, with me (Marc Huxted), Sean Oliver and John Fabian strolling towards the line, suddenly I heard an almighty crash and saw fletch and his ghetto booty had fallen over the ball, the fact Orpington’s front row were now bound to him may have had something to do with it. I am not sure of the order but Danny Rankine went over for a try as did Sean Oliver for his 2nd, which involved some excellent lines and hands from the backs, namely James Huxted (I may be biased). Then Bender nailed the kick from just inside the touch line (that reminds me Ian, Johnny asked if he could have his kicking boots back) The heat finally took its toll on the Brocks defence and after a few penalties and two late sin bins for Mowgli and Sean (to be fair if i had run as much as those two I'd have appreciated the early bath) they scored and converted a late try.

It’s a shame not many of the boys could hang around to celebrate for that long after, I think me and James Huxted made up for that in the bar, or at least my empty wallet suggests we did. Captains MOTM quite rightly went to Sean who as always ran his socks off. I would also like to mention that the whole team attitude was much better than last year despite being down we just went back at them twice as hard, also the communication was much better this week. It wasn't a perfect performance but this is an improving side and there were far more positives than negatives to build on. The areas we let ourselves down like the lineout can be worked on at training, away at Bexley next week, let’s build on this and regain some pride after our shocking performance there last season.