Cobham edged a poor London 1 South encounter by 13-10 at Fairmile Lane on Saturday, by virtue of taking 2 of the very few opportunities that came their way and hanging on grimly in the 2nd half as London Cornish finally awoke from their Festive slumber. That Cornish couldn't land the points came down to execution rather than lack of opportunity, and it is to be hoped that the exiles kick on from this point, as this was the third narrow defeat in the last 5 matches at this level.
A heavy pitch at Cobham's excellent HQ meant that this was likely to be a forwards dominated day, but the fact is that neither pack had the fitness levels post the break to dominate for extended periods of time, and from the off a combination of that fact and some abject kicking from hand from both sides, meant that the game began in a thoroughly disjointed and unstructured fashion. With both sets of supporters shaking their heads at what they were witnessing, the home side took the lead with a penalty on the quarter hour mark, though Cornish missed the opportunity to level things up with a similar attempt a few minutes later. Cobham lost 2 backs, including their influential scrum half, to nasty looking knocks in the opening quarter, and the reshuffle did nothing to improve the fluidity of the game. It was entirely in keeping with the match that Cobhams opening try on 22 minutes came from a completely miscued Cornish clearance kick, though the conversion flew wide. Cornish had crafted very little of note until, on 33 minutes, talismanic lock Harry Somers intercepted a pass on his 22 to hare up the field until felled well into the home 22. Not only did the opportunity go begging, but Somers was injured in the tackle, Matt Hakes on in the back row and Claude Springer moving into the row. This had a thoroughly disruptive effect on the exiles lineouts, which reduced their set piece ball on this aspect of the game down to around 20%. Fortunately, Cornish could rely on their ever reliable scrum dominance, and this is what kept them in the game, Skip George Kimmins opening his teams account with a penalty on the stroke of half-time, Cob 8-3 to the good at the break.
Now playing down the slope, Cornish opened with a series of driving runs from the likes of no 8 Matt Chambers, lock James La Broy and tight head Dave Theobald. These took play to the shadows of the Cobham posts, where the visitors were pinged for holding to much jubilation from the Surrey side. Having weathered this early storm, the home team produced a decent passage of play to release their left wing for a 1 on 1, the exiles man missing the tackle to allow the lad to dive over for an unconverted try wide left. Cornish made a couple of tactical changes at this point, Oli Low and Toby Fletcher (him finally returning from 6 weeks out with injury) replacing Mark O'Leary and Joe Donnelly, the latter who had made some decent carries. The effect was to galvanise the side to produce more fluid rugby, and after Chambers drove on from the base of scrum on the hour mark, La Broy drove through a tackle, and twisted over under the posts only for the ball to spill from his grasp in the act of scoring. With Cobham beginning to tire, Cornish were now making plenty of ground and retaining the ball more comfortably. On 69 minutes a Dave Funston break down the left saw him downed in the 22, and after the ball was twice recycled by Rich Stephens, Chambers was on hand to cap a decent personal performance to drive over for the try, converted from some way out by Kimmins. Game on at 13-10. 2 minutes later, Cornish won a kickable penalty for a scrum offence, but the effort flew wide. On 2 more occasions in the closing minutes, the exiles fashioned overlaps wide right, but contrived to butcher the opportunities with wrong options taken, and it was a very frustrated squad that saw time run out on them, Cobham having won the match by 13-10.
Cobham are great hosts, and there remain strong relationships between the 2 clubs forged over decades of interaction both on and off the pitch. They were delighted to reverse the result from the meeting earlier in the season, and your correspondent was delighted to sample the post match cassoulet twice, which was in fact the highlight of his day!!
Cornish have lost their winning mojo of late, but there were signs in the latter stages of this match that they are beginning to find their feet again. This is a side who are capable of launching long winning runs, so here's hoping that one begins again soon as there are only narrow margins that have prevented the team from being in the top 4 of this division on this, the clubs first ever attempt at the level.