OWs read the riot act by the Law

The Counts were missing three key players who were unavailable – skipper Will Thornton, Jonny Evans and Harry Wrightson – along with injury absentees Toby Bentley and Remy Claustres, and were to lose their most impressive forward, hooker Rob Fleming to injury early in the match. Law Society were easily the best side Walcountians have faced all season and, from the start, had Walcountians on the back foot as their speedy breaking from rucks, excellent support play and a pacy backline made the Counts look pedestrian in contrast. Within the first ten minutes, Law Society were ten points up through two tries.

The one-way traffic continued through the first half. 15 minutes into the match, a desperate Walcountians conceded a penalty try after ill-advisedly trying to block the exit of the ball from a ruck close to their line and, by half-time, two more Law Society tries have them a 29-point cushion.

The second half saw a much more energetic display from Walcountians and, for the first time in the match, they began to threaten the Law Society tryline. Within four minutes of the restart, Walcountians had opened their account after flanker Callum Rees drove over for a try after picking the ball out of a ruck close to the Law Society tryline.

Walcountians continued to take the game to Law Society and strong driving runs from locks Joe Lawrence and Pete Thomas in particular helped drive play forward while a tactical reshuffle in the backs which saw full-back Ross Norton move to centre injected more pace into the Walcountians threequarters. 20 minutes into the second half, Walcountians struck again when magnificent teamwork between forwards and backs saw flanker Ed Bellringer take an offload and sprint through for a try.

However, Bellringer’s try proved the last moment of glory for the Counts who were unable to pull off a Lazarus-like comeback for the second match in sucession. In the last five minutes, they were reduced to 14 players after prop Ben Anderson was sin-binned and Law Society took advantage of the disparity in numbers to run in their sixth try of the day.

Despite this loss, Walcountians remain top of Surrey League 1, if only on points difference from Law Society. Next Saturday, they take on strugglers Purley John Fisher in a match they must win to stand a chance of retaining pole position at the halfway point. Kick-off at Parson’s Pightle, Couldson, is at 2pm.

Old Walcountians:- Norton, Fletcher-Rogers, Bateman, Abou-Zeid (D), Stylianou, Wehbe, Chmielinski, Abou-Zeid (A), Fleming, Harris, Lawrence, Thomas, Rees, Bellringer, Henderson.

Subs:- Anderson, McMullen, Vadivelu.