Big Weekend for London South Africa

Cranleigh 5 - London South Africa Surrey XV 32

Richmond Saxons 34 - London South Africa Shield XV 0

London South Africa’s (LSA) Surrey XV returned to winning ways with an important 32-5 away win over Cranleigh, the league leaders at the beginning of the weekend. Last week’s frustrating 22-26 loss to the Old Wellingtonians became as distant memory with this solid performance away from home with LSA running in 5 tries in front of some very vocal home support.

But an important part of the club’s success in their second season is the development of a second team in the Canterbury Shield competition. On Saturday, the LSA Shield XV faced last year’s Division Four winners, the Richmond Saxons, which was a major challenge for the new team. With many new faces who had not trained or played together before, the team nevertheless took the field with the determination to put on a good performance that would ensure that the Saxons would not have it all their way. LSA produced some exciting phases of play, and were unlucky not to have been rewarded with at least one or two tries for all their hard work, following a number of very near misses. The scoreboard did not accurately reflect the relative strengths of the two teams, and when LSA found themselves down by 12-0 at halftime, there were many who still believed they could win the game. But in the last 20 minutes tiredness crept in and to the disappointment of a team that were still largely on the attack, the final score crept up to 34-0.

The team were certainly light on the forward’s side after a couple of late withdrawals due to illness but there were some outstanding individual performances.  Amongst the loose forwards Daniel Meiring and Tom Modinger led from the front and in the backs Jarred Vock proved himself to have a great pair of hands at number ten. Commenting on the game afterwards, S has the potential to become a formidable force in the Shield”. Next week, the LSA Surrey XV have a bye, while the Shield XV are travelling to Portsmouth, where they are expected to put in a much stronger performance.