This end of season friendly arrived with great sunny weather at Vandals and the boys appeared to be ready - until the kick off. The kick off was cleanly gathered by a Twickenham centre who raced through Vandals to score untouched in the corner. Not in the script!
That gave Vandals the kick they needed and from that point, they dominated play with some fantastic support play with pop passes made from the ground, passes out of the tackle and good rucking play. The result was a succession of tries from James Gulliver scoring a hat trick of tries, 2 of which were converted by Harry Weatherall, Rory Burtenshaw and Connor Paull (converted by Harry Weatherall) before a reply from Twickenham. James Gulliver managed another just before half time giving Vandals the lead at 36 - 10.
After the break, Vandals again got into their stride well with more tries from James Shaw (converted by Harry Weatherall), Jon-Paul Owen (converted by Harry Weatherall) and James Gulliver before Twickenham got their reward for persistance with 2 tries. The final act of a gripping game was a great interception and some showboating from Rory Burtenshaw.
The end score was 62 - 20 to Vandals.
The game was played in great spirit by both sides, Twickenham not giving up and deserving of their own tries but Vandals, with mass substitutions, played extremely well and with great purpose throughout.
There were many good performances worthy of mention as individuals but the whole squad played at the level the coaches know they are capable of, which was very pleasing (at last).
Individuals worthy of note were:
Connor Paull who got his first ever try through determination and self belief.
James Gulliver - truly awesome performance and good involvement of other players.
Rhys Marshall for a good game at scrum half.
Taren Dhillon for great mauling and driving performance.
Duncan Dickson for his fantastic tackling throughout.

This was a fantastic performance from everyone which drew very complimentary comments from the Twickenham coach and parents, as well as being very pleasing for our own parents to watch.
This is the standard which these boys are capable of playing at, provided they believe in themselves and those around them, stick to the simple things and get them right!

It would be great if we could start next season at this level, rather than waiting to end the season at this level!