London Cornish endured a miserable afternoon in the wet at the Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields on Saturday, going down to previously winless Weybridge Vandals by 13-3 and losing at least 3 further players with injuries that will test the depth of the clubs resources. The visitors took the spoils by virtue of a goal and two penalties to a penalty as they mastered the conditions far better than their much changed hosts, who slip down to 4th place in the table as a result.
One of the banes of the Cornish coaching teams selection issues in recent seasons has been the unavailability of key players during the season, and here again Cornish were forced to shuffle their resources for a variety of reasons; out went Cuming, Nimmons, Ridsdale, Brading, Barker, Short and Frost from the previous weeks team, none of them available for selection. In came Will Carew-Gibbs, Pete Calvert, Rob Aird, Mike Allewell, Alex Crimmens, Rich McKeown and Ian Keith. The sooner the players recognize that this is no way to be competitive at this level, the better for the sanity of the selection committee, only 4 matches in and already only 5 players ever present, at least one of them missing the next match! The home pitch was in amazing condition considering the rain during the week, but as the sides warmed up so the rain began, the forecasters wide of the mark again.
Cornish began the game playing away from the clubhouse but were pinned back early on as the visitors held on to the ball well in the close quarter exchanges. They were thwarted by fine defence however, Chris Alder and Mike Allewell particularly adept at pinching the ball on the floor. Gradually, winning repeated penalties to work their way up field, the league leaders began to dominate territory. On 23 minutes scrum half Dave Madigan snagged his opposite number at the base of a scrum, the player panicked into conceding a kickable penalty, but in what was to become a feature of the match the penalty missed despite being well struck. No such profligacy from the visiting kicker 7 minutes later, the award given for a prop boring in, the interesting stab kick style of the Vandals kicker seeming to work in the conditions. With mistakes littering the match, neither side was able to put much width on the ball, and though no 8 Crimmens consistently made ground for Cornish, he was rarely able to do so within range of the visitors try line. On 37 minutes fly half McKeown launched an excellent garyowen, which caught the Vandals full back undecided on whether the ball was landing inside or outside the 22. His hesitation forced him to miss the ball, and it skidded beyond him and into the air for the onrushing Keith to try and gather in, the line at his mercy. He flicked it up once, twice, then three times with his fingertips to try and bring it in, but if fell agonizingly forward and the chance was gone. Within a minute his side landed another penalty chance but once again the kick slipped wide and this miss was brought into sharper focus within 60 seconds, a series of poor decisions and some hashed handling giving Vandals a chance for a forward to fly hack on and score half way in to the posts, the conversion made and the side out to an unlikely 10-0 lead. Almost immediately, Cornish won a third penalty at the restart but to their horror this also flew wide, the whistle seeing the home side behind at the break for the second time in two weeks.
Cornish knew they had not really started in the opening period and flew out of the blocks at the start of the second half, wing Ben Carew-Gibbs finally given some clean ball. He stepped his man and was only downed by a fine covering tackle and the ball scrambled into touch. Lock Pete Calvert pinched the lineout and set his side off rolling a maul inside the visitors 22, where the home backs were caught offside. Madigan took over the kicking duties and slotted the kick to give voice to the exiles support at 3-10. Vandals 10 now launched a series of his own kicks to gain field position and on 43 minutes this tactic worked as the home side were caught trying to run the ball out of defence, the resultant penalty flying across the face of the posts. It didn’t take long for another chance to come along however, a player penalized for going off his feet and this time no mistake from the Vandals 15 to stretch the lead back out to 10. An injury to full back Tom Hurley now saw Robin Heymann on in his place. The game entered a crucial phase as Cornish reverted to a 10 man game, pick and drives mixed with rolling mauls driving Vandals back inside their 22. Time and again this tactic seemed to gain decent field position only for poor decision making to hand the initiative back to an ever more confident visiting side, their tackle count on the day a credit to their packs fitness. With Johnson and Will Carew-Gibbs working to burrow under tackles and Crimmens trying to smash his way over, the defence was at times desperate but it held strong and after a 10 minute siege, the visitors cleared their lines. They had conceded a number of penalties in the red zone during the game however, and the referees patience finally snapped on 61 minutes, the Vandals lock consigned to 10 in the bin. Cornish sensed their moment but rather than change their game plan, they kept on trying to bash their way over. With a number of their larger units not available on the day, this meant a frustrated back line saw little of the ball in the areas they would have liked to have seen it, and when it did come it was when the forwards were going backwards. Two changes were forced on the exiles at this point, Skipper Theobald off with a knee injury to be replaced by Ronnie Gunson, and Calvert replaced by Mark Osei-Tutu, who went to 8 with Crimmens moving into the row. The impact was immediate, Osei-Tutu putting Bridgett away down the right flank, him showing a real turn of pace to clear away only for his inside pass to find a Vandals player and not one of his own. With Cornish still on the attack with 7 minutes left, the referee deemed an exile to be guilty of a team offence well inside the Vandals 22, his game ended early with the sin bin. Within a minute Cornish were reduced to 13 when Allewell, who had thrown everything into his game, suffered a neck compression in a tackle, the game delayed then moved to another pitch for an ambulance to be summoned. (Thankfully, he was discharged later that night, the damage deemed to be muscular rather than anything else.) With rain continuing to fall, Vandals won another penalty for holding on the home 22, the kick missing right. There was time for one more Cornish attack down the left flank, but the ball was spilt with clear ground in sight, the final whistle ending one of those afternoons the home side will quickly want to consign to history.
This division has repeatedly shown its teeth in recent seasons, the league winners for the past few seasons doing well at the levels above. Here again was a side with no form of which to speak, deservedly landing the spoils against a team with the best form in the league. It was an understandably delighted Vandals who came back to Telegraph Inn after the match, and good luck to them cos they had earnt their win.
Cornish will regroup after this, the coaching team no doubt conferring with some of the senior players and reviewing the options from the powerful 2s before moving forward. Good sides respond positively to a defeat, so we will now see what the exiles are made of.

LCRFC – Tom Hurley (Robin Heymann), Laurie Bridgett, Nick Harlock, Ian Keith, Ben Carew-Gibbs, Rich McKeown, Dave Madigan, Alex Crimmens, Mike Allewell, Chris Alder, Rob Aird, Pete Calvert (Mark Osei-Tutu), Dave Theobald (Ronnie Gunson), Will Carew-Gibbs, George Johnson.