London Cornish landed the London 2 South-West Championship at the first time that the opportunity presented itself in the season, scoring 7 tries at the Richmond RFC home of Old Tonbridgians on Saturday. The muted and delayed response to the title win was due to a horrible injury suffered by centre Dave Funston during the game, the severity of which only become apparent shortly after the final whistle – it is only now that the team (and hopefully Dave) can breathe a little easier and enjoy the history making achievement (see article elsewhere on the website for more info on the injury).
Tonbridgians are an itinerant pub side, and locating the correct pitch to play on at Richmond’s ground is hard enough without the added complication of a 6 Nations match against the Scots meaning you had to wade past swathes of supporters of both countries carrying any number of beers on an unseasonably warm day. When located, Cornish noted the pitch was very small and better suited to moulded studs, meaning a fast game was very likely. Changes to the squad saw returns for Tom Lloyd at prop, Harry Somers at lock and skipper, James La Broy at 6 and Mark Osei-Tutu at 8 giving the pack a much more solid look. Out wide, Matt Hakes moved to the wing, Chris Kolapo-Ajala to full back, and Joe Donnelly came in at centre with regular Skip Craig Chatley away.
The pattern of the match was set from the off, OT’s keen to spread the ball wide at every opportunity and not wanting to take on Cornish around the fringes. However, in order to do this you have to win your set pieces, and while they won most of their lineouts, the home side were comprehensively out-scrummaged from the off. The league leaders butchered a couple of early chances (and plenty more throughout the match) before executing a fine slice move on 15 minutes to send giant wing Tom Jeffery through a gap to saunter over to the left of the tiniest set of posts in the league (the ones at the other end were a standard size), for George Kimmins to add the extras. Cornish made a hash of gathering the restart, and paid the price in full when the home centre broke through to score under the posts to level the score with the very next play. OT’s took the lead with a penalty on 19 before extending that lead 6 minutes later when they drove over wide left as the visitors continued to try flashy offloads rather than focus on the basics. 15-7 down, the league leaders needed to respond, and they did just that after a Dave Funston break set up a maul wide right, hooker Jake Slade the man in the right spot to crash over for a try converted by Kimmins on the half hour mark. Shortly afterwards, the home hooker succumbed to an injury, but his replacement looked ill equipped to step in, and within a minute he too left the pitch with an injury forcing the home side down to 14, but crucially now able to rely on every scrum on their put in as the scrums were now uncontested for the rest of the match. This infuriated the visitors, who finally put together a fine set of phases before sending Jeffery walking over wide right for an unconverted try to take the lead back, 19-15 up at the break.
Continuing with the momentum after the break, there appeared nothing on as Cornish worked the ball to Kolapo-Ajala on 44 minutes down the left wing. However, the recent signing had other ideas, chipping a kick over the top, dashing between 2 defenders then regathering, before having enough strength to drive through the tackle of the final defender to score an opportunists try, the crucial bonus point try converted by Kimmins. An early change saw Steve Wood on at 6 for Osei-Tutu, La Broy moving to 8, this having been Osei-Tutu’s first run since his injury for a couple of months. The Funston injury happened at this point, Paddy Dean on at 10 and Kimmins moving to 13. La Broy, who enjoyed a fine match, scored twice wide left on 53 and 60 minutes (both unconverted) when OT’s simply ran out of numbers, but the home side responded with one of their own on 58, which was improved to make the score 36-20 to Cornish with an hour gone. Lloyd had been withdrawn during this period, Oli Low on in his place, and it says much for Low that despite the match being played in conditions that are clearly not his favourite, he repeatedly made huge yardage in the closing minutes. A poor decision to kick when in good field position rebounded on the league leaders on 65 minutes when the ball landed straight in the arms of the onrushing OT’s wing, who exchanged passes with a teammate to run in under the posts for the home side’s bonus point try, the match still alive with Cornish now only 9 ahead. With the momentum, OT’s turned down a kick smack in front of the posts with 10 left to kick for the corner. However, Harry Somers, who had twice been denied tries in the match that he is convinced were good, pinched the lineout and then won a penalty for Kimmins to clear. With time almost up, a Ben Ievers lineout steal saw the ball worked one way and then the other, before scrum half Rich Stephens broke clear to set up Matt Hakes to dance his way past the final OT defender and score the try that closed out the game, set and match.
OT’s have had a great season of which they can be justifiably proud, but this match demonstrated that there are positions in which their cover is paper thin. They will need to build depth in the close season or such an issue could become terminal, as its all very well when you are winning on a regular basis, but should they start losing when you only have the one team….Lets hope they sort it out, as they play an enterprising brand of rugby and are a decent bunch. Apologies for not coming back post match – we hope that, given the circumstances, we are forgiven!

This result means that London Cornish RFC are London 2 South-West Champions for 2016-17 and are promoted to London 1 South for the first time in the clubs history. However, the squad was quick to reassert that there are significant goals to achieve yet this season, not least staying unbeaten in the league and remaining focused on the Cup. The time for celebration will come – 6 more games could remain to be won!