London South Africa win again to keep pressure on the leaders

25th November 2006

On a cold, wet autumn day, LSA travelled to Dulwich, south east London for their game against mid table Old Alleynian. A resilient OA team were determined to take it to LSA and make it a tough afternoon for the South Africans.

Playing up hill and into the wind on a sodden pitch was not the ideal situation for LSA to find themselves in with their desire to play open, expansive attacking rugby. And it showed. Early on a handling error in the LSA backs, trying to run it out of their own 22, led to an OA score after only 5 minutes to put the home team 7 – 0 up.

This was to be the only score for OA all afternoon but superiority was a long time in coming to LSA. After 12 minutes the crowd had a taste of what the exciting play LSA can put on when Dave Blackburn chipped through for the speedy David Kelly to score. Matt Fendick was unlucky to hit the post with the attempted conversion, leaving LSA trailing 7 – 5. And that was the way it stayed until half time in spite of a lot of endeavour from both sides.

A few well chosen words at the break, together with the wind and slope at their backs saw LSA come out a much improved side. What followed in the second half were three quality LSA scores – each one involved great link work between forwards and backs and, given the conditions, some superb handling - a credit to the skill levels in the team. LSA had worked hard for it and the final score of 7 – 24 flattered the opposition slightly but in the conditions was a just reward for all LSA’s hard work.

“A solid win with a good second half performance” was how UK Director Justin Paige described it, “we will be looking to build on that for this weekend against the Law Society”.

This weekend sees LSA Surrey XV welcome the Law Society and the LSA Shield XV welcome Staines to Imber Court for an exciting double header. Look forward to seeing you there.

Surrey Squad:

Werner Swanepoel, Aldo Du Plessis, Gareth Dickson, Anton Kriel, John Turner, Jake Hoddinott, Justin Rose, Tiaan Visser, Tom Hendry, David Blackburn, Trevor Grundelingh, Gary Johnston, David Kelly, Malcolm Mirfin, Matt Fendick, Denis Schutte, Ross Cooley.