A visit to the Royal Park

It was a sunny but windy morning in the glorious surroundings of Royals Regent Park.

Both teams started with intentions to run the ball around but greasy conditions lead to quite a few knock on's. Wasps were the first in action, after a few good phases close to the line, Theo quickly played a penalty ran through a few players and extended his arm to ground the try. James H converted to put us in front 7-0.
Wasps looked like the better team, were playing well but running sideways. Royals started applying a bit more pressure, then a succession of handling errors under our posts gave away an easy try and allowed them back into the game.
Royals were playing better with their big centre running straight at us but good defence from the centres and great tackles from flankers Leo and Victor allowed us to defend our line after long phases of dominance by the opposition.

Half time arrived on a well defended draw at 7 -7.

Wasps started the second half with good intentions but unfortunately playing from their own half. After a few minutes a box wasn't properly followed allowing their centre to hand-off a couple of our players and score straight between the posts. Royals had a huge surge in confidence and started running the ball around some of them big forwards starting punching holes in our defence. Luckily some desperate tackles by James and full back Nate were protecting our line. But eventually an innocuous looking kick from their fly half was ;picked by their winger who side stepped his way between the post and Royals were now largely in front 19-7.

Theo gave the impulsion for the revolt, some good pick and goes by the forward then a massive solo effort by Theo sizzling through 7 or 8 defenders to score a beautiful try, 19-14.

Unfortunately from then on, Wasps gave away too many balls, they were dominated at the break down and their head started to drop. A new festival of handling errors in front of the posts gave Royals two easy tries. Some nice runs by their centres gave them another two and the score ended up being too heavy for us 39 - 14.

A few positives to keep:

- great spirit all around, apart from the last 20 minutes the guys defended their line with great intensity.
- stellar performance by Theo but also by Victor as flanker who seemed to have received a third lung.
- good games for Kieran, Lucas, Leo and Nate as well. Antonio was promising even though he has very little rugby.