Esher 22 Blackheath 64
A comfortable win in the end for Blackheath, but not without a concerning first 10 mins where the Well Hall-based side seemed to have been unable to shrug off the hangover of the prior week’s result. When the final whistle blew, the home side might feel somewhat aggrieved to have been struck by so many attritional injuries as they ended the contest with 14 men without any fit players as replacements. With eight games remaining these injuries will be of great concern to Messers Winterbottom & co.
Despite starting the day in the bottom three, the Molesey Road side went into the tie with considerable confidence having enjoyed three bonus point wins in as many weeks against DMP (away) 22-29, Birmingham Moseley (away) 24-31 and Rosslyn Park (home) 54-42. It was therefore unsurprising that with ball in hand, and with impressive Sam Morley conducting proceedings at 10, this helped the home side to a rapid start on the scoresheet with outside centre Myles Rawstron-Rudd breaking through the Club backline to offload to Stan Norman on the right wing to score within 5 mins. Worryingly easy free-flowing rugby, and the conversion was a formality to the right of the uprights making it 7-0.
Andrew Denham, celebrating his final game in Club colours, was a grateful recipient of a long pass from Tom Ffitch after line-out ball in the Esher 22 and, with defender holding on, he showed great strength to dot down in the left corner with Tom Ffitch converting from a tough angle to bring the scores all-square 7-7 with only 9 minutes on the clock. Some of those who looked like they had enjoyed a long and sumptuous lunch were still taking their seats!
Barely a minute later, a Club infringement in front of their own posts saw Esher take their lead for the final time in the whole game from a Morley penalty kick, but moments later he was hobbling off with only 10 mins on the clock, which must have been quite a set back for the home side.
Blackheath’s power game stepped up a few gears with a series of a few smart catch ‘n’ drives concluding with Andy Boye heading over the tryline, closely followed by Jake Lloyd capitalising on confusion in the Esher ranks on their own tryline, sandwiched by a Ffitch penalty kick. The final play before half time was a scrappy Club line-out within the Esher 22 but Tom Everard, on his 26th and final cap, wasn’t going to be denied his first of the afternoon and the conversion by Ffitch took the half-time duel to 10-31.
Soon after the restart, experience and the visitors devastating power told, with Billy Harding capitalising on another neat post line-out maul dropping down on his 14th of the season (tied with his own season’s best when playing for Esher) which took the score to 10-36, and props Davis and Boye were soon replaced by Blackheath’s own bomb squad duo of Marsh and Holland. The latter wasted no time in blasting through the defence to find an offload to Noah Sloot who, on his 25th cap, stretched acrobatically to get across the whitewash. With an easy conversion by Tom Ffitch, Blackheath were really beginning to hit their stride 10-43 and yet 27 mins were still left to play with Esher injuries piling up.
More home side infringements presented Blackheath with decent field positions and with the line-out humming, Auguy Slowik this time crashed through the defence and made 20 yards with an Esher back holding on for dear life. Ball was passed left and Tom Everard soon punched the air having lost his scrum cap celebrating his brace for the afternoon.
Some scrappy play by Club and a series of penalties resulted in Esher’s backline taking a quick tap and finding no.13 Rawston-Rudd in space to go over the try line to inject some hope of chasing a try bonus point with the score at 17-50 with 15 mins to go, but it wasn’t to be.
More Esher leg injuries began to mount with many of their side playing out of position and with tight head prop, Taylor Gayle, relegated to the 2nd row, it was no surprise to see Blackheath’s scrum now displaying ruthless dominance and winning scrum penalties on most of their own put-ins. The Club men threw assault after assault at the men in yellow and, after a home side goal line drop out, Auguy Slowik again weaved around defenders to set up Jake Lloyd for his 2nd of the afternoon. We were now at 17-57 with still 11 mins to play.
Another effective Club line-out and maul presented the ball to player of the match, Andy Denham, who crashed through a series of defenders at full kilter, allowing Archie Holland a try and, with Tom Ffitch at his ruthless best, the score effortlessly rose to 17-64 with a few minutes left to play.
Esher’s left wing, no.11 James Botterill, wasn’t to be denied his name on the scoresheet as a period of unstructured home-side forays finally saw the ball worked to his left wing. With Blackheath’s defence absent he sprinted half of the pitch to dot down in the corner despite a valiant attempt by Auguy Slowik to try to catch him.
The unconverted try resulted in a final score of 22-64 — a high score given temperatures were barely registering mid-single digits amid light drizzle. Indeed, this is the highest ‘points for’ and tries total (9) for Blackheath all season and a veritable double over their south west London rivals with an aggregate tally of 114-49 in respect of the 24/25 season.
Next week Blackheath Rugby travels to the Darlington Arena for the rearranged away game against Darlington Mowden Park. Kick off is at 15:00
The next Blackheath home fixture is on 1st March v Sedgley Park. Kick off is at 15:00.
Blackheath
Tries: Denham 7; Boye 20; Lloyd 34, 67; Everard 39, 57; Harding 47; Sloot 52; Holland 78
Conv: Ffitch 7, 21, 34, 39, 52, 57, 67, 78
Pen: 30
Esher
Tries: Norman 3; Rawstron-Rudd 63; Botterill 80
Conv: Morley 3; Walker 63
Pen: Morley 10
| 15 | SLOWIK, Augustin |
| 14 | LLOYD, Jake |
| 13 | BURCHAM, Markus (VC) |
| 12 | HIRSKYJ-DOUGLAS, Oskar |
| 11 | DENHAM, Andrew |
| 10 | FFITCH, Tom |
| 9 | BURNS, Jordan |
| 1 | DAVIS, Will |
| 2 | HARDING, Billy |
| 3 | BOYE, Andrew |
| 4 | STRADWICK, Tom |
| 5 | EVERARD, Tom |
| 6 | SMART, Josh |
| 7 | SLOOT, Noah |
| 8 | BALDWIN, Tom (C) |
| 16 | WALLIKER, Ollie |
| 17 | HOLLAND, Archie |
| 18 | MARSH, Rory |
| 19 | DALY, Jack |
| 20 | ETETE, Mike |
Photograph Kevin Taylor
Mark Sheridan
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