PETERSFIELD 25, TEDDINGTON 13

PETERSFIELD hope this victory will be the dawn of new era for the Penns Place club.

Following a successful pre-season, they defeated well-established London 3 South-West team Teddington.

It was the perfect start for ’Field as centre Tom Franks scored with less than a minute gone. Aggressive defence from the pack led to an error and Franks punished the visitors with a powerful break down the right.

After only two games together, the half-back partnership of Nick Blumlein and Michael Robbins is starting to click. Flanker Matt Momber impressed in both attack and defence, while fellow backrowers Toby Sydenham and Chris Edward were disruptive at the breakdown, giving ’Field good possession.

The home pack again demonstrated that the whole is more than the sum of its parts by winning all their own scrum ball while stealing much of Teddington’s.

Petersfield lost Sydenham before the break with a shoulder injury, but his team-mates merely stepped up their work-rate, leading to two more tries – one each for quicksilver wings Eddie Matthews and Josh Haslett.

Nick Blumlein added two conversions and a penalty and Petersfield took a 22-3 lead into half-time, Bob Beevers having kicked three points for Teddington.

With the game effectively won, Petersfield lost their focus somewhat on the restart and it took try-saving tackles from Matthews and Seb Tuff to prevent certain scores. Generally, though, Teddington were unable to run through or round the red back line and resorted to playing kick-chase as a hopeful attacking option.

With Momber sin-binned either side of half-time for a late tackle, ’Field had to step up and show steel in defence and the 14 players did just that, keeping a clean sheet in that period.

However, a series of penalties let Teddington back into the game and the resurgent visitors capitalised on lineouts inside the home 22, twice driving over for Tom Collett to get the touch-down.

With territory and possession almost equal, Field missed chances for further tries, but Blumlein eventually kicked another penalty to secure the victory.

Coach James Alder said: “I’m delighted with the grit, strength and competition for places that is showing at training and on the pitch. Our forwards completely dominated Teddington. The bonus point would have been a great reward, but with a heavy penalty count and being down to fourteen stopped our momentum.”

Petersfield visit relegated Warlingham in their first away game this Saturday.