London Cornish produced just enough quality on the day to edge a decent game with perennial visitors Effingham & Leatherhead at the Richardson Evans on Saturday, 4 goals and a penalty besting 1 goal, 3 tries and a penalty. In the event, the 16 points scored by returning fly half Phil Dale (pictured), which included a 100% kicking record, proved decisive as the hosts improved on their previous weeks performance but left room for plenty more.

A plethora of reasons had lead to Cornish fielding an unfamiliar squad in the opening league fixture at KCS, and this issue was compounded by a season ending injury to starting fly half Tom Baker in the early part of that matches 2nd half. Its a measure of the early season travails affecting Cornish that now 26 players have been used in the 2 league matches so far. However, the exiles do have extraordinary depth, demonstrated on this day by the fact that despite last seasons first choice front row and back up all being unavailable, Cornish still fielded 4 full squads complete with front row. Rory Ling made his full debut at tight head here, Ben Devonport returned at 8, Dale was recalled at 10, Joe Donnelly made his second start at centre, James Thomas made his full debut at 13 and off the bench debuts were also given to front row Shiv Khara and back row Tom Patton. With the 2s backing up their opening day win with another at Cobham 2s in the Zoo Sports Shield, the ammo available to the exiles is there, it just needs to get up to match speed!

It was Devonport who scored his teams first try, powering in at an angle on 4 minutes for Dale to convert, this a response to a successful penalty by the visitors with the first play of the game. Ex Blaydon wing Tom Jeffery was next to score, his angled run being seen by Dale but this one being scored under the posts for Dale to double the score on 17 minutes. Despite a period of Eagles pressure, Cornish scored again on the half hour, Dale 3 times being involved and linking with Jeffery and Davenport before stand in Skipper Harry Somers crossed wide right, this one also converted by the fly half. Any hope Eagles had of scoring in this half was extinguished on the whistle when they were shoved off their own put in after Cornish had held them up over the line, the half time score 21-3.

Dale displayed a fine grasp of the laws of the game with the first attack in the second half, planting the ball at the foot of the posts for a try after a chip through sat up for Jeffery to launch a powerful run into the Eagles 22, the bonus point try converted. Now Eagles awoke from their slumber, their decent left wing jinking over wide left on 48. Their talented fly half suffered a suspected broken arm in this attack - we wish him well with his recovery and hope he is back in action in time for the return. Cornish were forced into a number of changes at this point, one of which saw open side Owen Bater stood down with a head knock. On the hour mark full back Jackson Szabo gave a glimpse of what exiles supporters can expect when he is fully match fit when his withering run from his 22 took play to the opposing 22, where E's were pinged for hands in, Dale taking the lead out to a seemingly unassailable 31-8. Not so. Eagles are a vastly improved outfit compared with previous seasons, and despite suffering another horrible injury to one of their forwards, they found Cornish thinking the hard work was done, scoring a try on 66 when counter attacking following a poor offload by an exile in the visitors 22, a third on 71 minutes when they produced a fine series of phases to score by the posts, and the bonus point try with the final play of the match, though the tackling at this point was paper thin.

The Eagles were clearly delighted with their 2 bonus points and merited them on the day. They took a few blows with injuries, and with one of the smaller squads in the division will hope they can cover for them - the spirit they showed when seemingly down and out in this match suggests the coaching team have a good group to work with so don't bet against it.

Cornish have somehow garnered 6 points with their 2 games to date, and will take some solace that they can improve in leaps and bounds in the coming weeks if the vast playing base are prepared to make a few sacrifices. Selection will settle down in the next few weeks, so it will be interesting to see if they can build upon the better aspects of this win.