With one squad off playing Ealing and Teddington, and a number of illnesses and absences, we were left with 24 players at Braywick to entertain Abbey - exactly two teams worth! Accordingly we played two games against the single Abbey squad, and both resulted in comfortable wins for Maids. Encouragingly, the coaches saw the first signs that the players had remembered that rugby is a team game, and there was some excellent passing and support play. Let's hope that continues when we come back after Christmas!

The first match saw a superb display from Sam Scott at scrum-half driving his occasionally less than energetic forwards on! A good deal of possession was secured - not least through the efforts of Will Turner - and the backs were able to turn that to good advantage. In the first half Max O'Connor opened the scoring after a flowing move, gratefully receiving the scoring pass from Thomas Eckles. A solo darting effort by William Thompson brought the 2nd try, and after he had slotted his 2nd successful conversion it was 14-0 at half time.

Abbey, who had been enjoying a winning streak going back some months, clearly had some serious encouragement at half-time, and the 2nd half was more closely fought, but in the end Sam McCarthy completed another backs move to extend the score and Will Thompson duly obliged with the conversion to finish things off 21-0.

The 2nd game saw a team consisting of both long established squad memebers and newer players. Markus Olivier impressed on his debut and Sam McGuire also showed that he is taking to the game very easily. It was Luke Thomas who opened the scoring, however, whilst almost everyone else stood still and watched! Luke converted his own try and one from Sam McGuire for a 14-0 half time lead. In the 2nd half Abbey's county sprinter ran round the Maids defence to restore some honour, but a further try from Sam (converted by Luke) and a solo score from Daniel Andrews-Jones from a tap penalty, converted by Ross Brown, finished things off 28-7.