Squandered chances cost Antlers dear

Not sure how the 1st XV lost this one, but a coach driver who couldn’t find the Trojans ground was not a good start to the day. This meant that a 5 minute warm up before the game was all we got. Unsurprisingly we leaked an early try whilst we were still getting ourselves into the zone. But once we got ourselves sorted out we started to dominate the set piece and open play and the result looked like it was only going to go our way. Against a strong wind in the first half we scored two tries by Fergus Farrell and Jules Richardson and a conversion by Glenn Boyling and we hit half time just 14-12 down and feeling confident. We'd have the wind and slope in our favour in the second half and the boys were staring to play really well.

We took the lead early in the second half with a well structured try finished off by Josh Penberthy. Territory and possession was now heavily stacked in our favour and we needed to kill the game off, but we then proceeded to butcher a whole host of open goal opportunities. Had we taken just one of these then the game would have been beyond Trojans. But our mistakes together with some officiating decisions that baffled not just us by the opposition allowed Trojans back into the game. After a one penalty after another which saw us pushed back to our try line they eventually scored and took a 4 point lead. With 5 minutes to go we had a choice; protect our losing bonus point and play out the remaining minutes; or, go for broke and try and get the try which would win us the game. Of course we chose the latter and in a kamikaze effort deep in our own 22 we dropped the ball in the middle of the park, as we tried to break free and sure enough Trojans scrambled the ball over the line to score. The result and the score certainly didn't reflect the game........but that's rugby. You have to take your chances and Trojans who didn't have many took them well.

Possibly the fact that this was a dead rubber for us but a huge must win and with a bonus point for Trojans didn’t help our cause either, but we really should have won this one. Anyway it would be great to finish the season off with a win against O Tiffs after the Easter break.

It would be great to see some travelling Antlers support at Old Tiffs on Saturday 11th April 3pm ko. It is south of the river again, but thankfully just the other side of Hampton Court Bridge.