An unusually hot November day greeted the league leaders Jersey upon arrival at Fortress Hurlingham. Well, it is more of a fort made of couch cushions these last few weeks, but it’s home…

Spirits were high in the 1’s camp after seeing off Camberley in our previous match and watching Nugget’s 2’s dust up Jersey in the sun. 80 mins stood before us and glory.

Jersey kicked off toward our elite training pitches and the king of the north, Dan, leapt high even though he knows nothing. A clean take, a nice jack left, lovely bogey up the touchline by Gregor and we exited well. What was going on?

Their 9, on debut, absolutely fluffed the lineout, a theme that would continue throughout the afternoon for him. It was an honour and a privilege to play in his first and last game at this level. The result gave the Hammers their first chance to attack. A lovely scrum move and silky hands from Geoff and Joe put Max into space. Early signs the boys were on. Gregor and Geoff managed the boys around the park well, making sure we were getting into the right areas with some useful kicking.

Some massive shots by tiny Josh, Whits and Ian let the Jersey boys know it was not going to be a stroll in the park. Jersey then somewhat against the run of play, opened the scoring with a nice lineout move that put their winger through 1 on 1 with Maxy. RIP Max’s ankles, 1998 to 2025.

Hammers earlier in the season would have folded, but with new attitudes this group got back to the job at hand and it paid dividends. Off a lovely lineout maul from a Dan dart, little Josh ran through the legs of 3 Jersey defenders, and they could not bend down to catch him. 7-5 Hammers.

5 minutes later the Hammers were in again after Joey plucked a Jersey pass out of the air. He ran 40m before wisely choosing to pass to Timmy in support, just before the quicksand swallowed him up. 14-7 Hammers.

The Hammers scored again after some in your face defence by Proctor and the Dan’s led to a loose ball that Timmy Russ pounced on with some nice touches that would make Messi proud and ran most of the field to dot down. 19-7 Hammers and the tails were up.

With the first half winding down, Jersey showed their class with some nice shape and strong carries, creating space in the wide channel for their 12 to run through and get one back. With the last play of the half, Jersey won a penalty and kicked to the corner. A strong maul had them in again and levelled things up at 19-19. A strong first half from the Hammers. Stay tuned to see if they could keep it up.

They could not keep it up.

Off the kick-off, the wave of red shirts parted for the Jersey second row to stroll through untouched, Moses would be proud.

Jersey ran in a flurry of tries against a now tiring Hammers defence. With the win out of reach, attention turned to obtaining a BP. Not many achieve that against this Jersey side. Some raids into the Jersey 22 frustratingly didn’t amount to any tries and with the clock winding down the Hammers were getting desperate. Max was sent to the naughty chair for being offside. I personally think the ref felt threatened for the worst on field mullet.

In an eerily frightening piece of foreshadowing (if you are Scottish), it was a blonde, handsome Kiwi 15, that helped rescue the situation. A quick tap from halfway caught Jersey off guard and the old hamstrings started pumping. A fend on their winger which surely has to be a low point in that guy’s career, had the tryline in sight. The cover tacklers dragged him down within a bee’s dick from the line. As usual, the seagull Joe was on hand and flopped over the line to take the credit. Bonus point secured, 3 games in a row now with points for the Hammers!

Congrats to Charlie and Yarwood on debut. Tough game to come into but neither took a backward step. Another shoutout to Poults and Rogan for a heroic effort to go 80 even though injured. The scrum was solid all day given the opposition and Rogan’s 4th and 5th vertebrae being held together by a Rob McKeon hair follicle. Ed and Ben added a nice impact off the bench with both putting in great hits and lifting the energy.

Man of the Match was the king of the north and well deserved. On to Wimbledon next where we will look to serve up a few aces.

 

Sunday morning, I wake up in a cold sweat. head pounding with few memories from the night before thanks to a successful Hammerween- I had a nightmare in which Max Dugdale is the club’s leading try scorer. Shaking, I reached for my phone and tried to piece together what had happened the day before…. A Happy Hammerween it was.

Hammers turned up to Camberley fashionably late- A tactical tweak made by our bus driver, who seemed to believe that a shortened warm up would provide the fast start that we had been missing.

Inspired by Marshall’s quiz and the assurances of immortality should the lads manage to be the first Hammers team to defeat Camberley away from home, the lads strode out and decided the best form of attack was in fact defence. Of the 40 minutes in the first half, Hammers defended for approximately 35, conceding 1 try and 2 yellow cards. Despite this alarming start, Hammers were defending with vigor- Josh and Dan’s akimbo throwing themselves at anything that moved. Hammers also managed to avoid conceding any points during the yellow card periods (Josh and Joe for some well crafted gamesmanship, perfected on the training ground, but caught by the referee).

Back up to our full 15, Hammers managed to retain the ball for longer than 3 phases and from a strong scrum, a slick Hammers set piece resulted in Max Dugdale – “tap in” merchant – dotting down in the corner for our first points of the game on the stroke of half time. Joe was unable to convert from the touchline, but it was an all important momentum swing for the lads leading in to the half, or so we thought as Camberley immediately responded with a try of their own- Hammers 5-12 Camberley.

Half Time, and some stirring words from Ryan.

With the lads motivated by a strong defensive half and clear chances to be had with ball in hand, there was hope for some points on the road, however within 5 minutes Camberley had managed to wriggle over from short range and made a comeback even tougher for a team with an impressive home record. However, the Hammers were not to be defeated that easily and from 17-5 down, the remainder of the second half provided a polar opposite performance from both teams, with Hammers taking control of possession and field position. A flowing hammers backs move allowed Tim to break wide with Hammers flooding through to support. The ball inside to Gregor and a right foot step sent him under the sticks for a 7 pointer, converted by Joe. Hammers sensed an upset on the cards. Two well taken tries from Joe, both self-converted, sent the away fans in to delirium and Bryce Morgan to show tremendous touchline mana in front of Rogan’s camera.

With a twitchy 9 point lead and Ryan’s command of ‘CONTROL!’ ringing in the ears of the lads, ‘Fan of free pints’, Gregor decided that a quick restart was the right option – perhaps a certain Frenchman’s style of quick and purposeful Rugby was still fresh in his mind from last season? Despite this, Hammers defended like their lives depended on it for the remaining minutes of the half and with Camberley in possession just outside of the 22, forced a turnover which Gregor duly booted out, completing the win.

A first win of the season for Hammers and hopefully, a sign of things to come with performances improving week-on-week and tries beginning to flow. A rest week next up and then we welcome Jersey to fortress Hurlingham for a double header.

Man of the Match – Joe Carolan

Fresh off the back of the previous week’s triumphant victory over Kilburn, Seb Money’s Destroyers made the short trip to Barnes on Saturday and came away with a hard-fought 27–24 win — equal parts sharp rugby and sheer bloody-mindedness.

The first twenty was all Hammers. The backs clicked from the off, moving it quickly and actually looking organised for once. Jordan Brown crashed over under the posts for the opener after a few tidy phases up front, before Jules Storey ran in a couple more — classic support play off some slick hands in the backs. It was proper rugby for a spell. The only downside was Jordan Opie’s boot off the tee: one conversion charged down; another scuffed from close range. Still, the scoreboard looked good and Hammers were in control.

Then Barnes started leaning on their two enforcers in the back row — each roughly the size of a transit van and twice as mean — and for ten minutes it looked like a live-action crash test. Every carry was a collision, blokes getting folded, bodies everywhere. They managed a couple of scrappy breakaway tries to keep themselves in it, more through chaos than structure, but the Destroyers hit back before the break with a tidy finish from Nathan Woolley in the corner. Somehow, Hammers absorbed the pressure, stuck to their shape, and went in deservedly on top.

The second half turned into something straight out of a pub car park. Nathan Smith took a cheap shot and made sure the bloke knew about it — bit of push, bit of shove, one high tackle later and he was sat in the bin wondering how he was the only one punished. A few minutes later, Theo West chopped one of their big lads from behind off a quick tap — about fifteen metres offside — and joined him. Down to thirteen.

Barnes fancied themselves at that point, and things started getting spicy. Their skipper got mouthy, Jordan Brown took exception, and promptly bitch-slapped him across the chops — the sort of thing that doesn’t show up on the stats sheet but really sets the tone. To his credit, he channelled the energy the right way soon after, beating a couple of defenders and crashing over in the corner for his second of the day, swinging the momentum back Hammers’ way. After the earlier kicking chaos in the first half, Cameron Roberts took over the tee duties but didn’t fare any better.

Hammers dug in. Barnes threw everything at the line, but the Destroyers scrambled, tackled, and somehow saw it out. A proper gutsy win from a side that refused to fold. Jules Storey took a well-deserved Man of the Match — two tries, sharp all game, and a constant threat with ball in hand. With both binned lads disappearing early, Jordan Opie picked up Dick of the Day honours for his work off the tee.

Seb Money, ever stoic at the helm, marshalled his legion of men to yet another victory — quietly reinforcing his status as the club’s most successful captain so far this season, maintaining his 100% win record. Honourable mentions also to debutants Theo West, Scott Ewen, Abdi Aden and Dan Hogg, who all slotted in seamlessly and made immediate impacts on and off the field.