Well, the season has kicked off early with a friendly arranged against Park Langley. Well, I say ‘against’ but as 14 of the PL squad are Beckenham players it was more like and ‘end of training session match’.

Indeed, because almost half of the ‘new’ U18 squad was playing for PL a number of ‘new’ U17’s had been drafted in. In this regard each team had a large squad of lads that played about an hour’s rugby.

It was a good opportunity for the coaches to see how the lad’s fitness had faired over the summer.

PL kicked off and were strong from the start. A lot of the 1st period saw Beckenham defending but they did this well. We had a couple of sojourns into the PL half and second time, about 15 mins in, they conceded a penalty just outside their 22 and Anthony O'Rourke (10) duly slotted it over to put Beckenham 3 points ahead!

The next phase of play saw end to end stuff with neither side wanting to give way. PL made some progress towards our try line and a penalty about 7m out saw a quick take, the ball moved right and their 10 finding a gap in a somewhat slow moving defensive line to take the score to 3-7 after about 29 mins.

Early into the second period we saw a fantastic run from Liam Greene – one of the U17’s playing 14 – all the way from inside our 22 to score just as he was tackled into goal! 8mins and the score now 10-7!

After this however PL became more dominant. Their forwards were winning all their set pieces and some of ours! PL’s 1st try of the period came from a push over from an infield move.

Shortly after this a catch & drive from a line out saw Chris Kately (a Beckenham U17 playing No. 2 for PL) pushed over to score his 1st. Score now 10-19.

Beckenham then came back in the action with a great box kick by Charlie Wood (9) that was chased down and put PL in touch in their half.

Unfortunately they were straight back up our end and a line out on our 5m saw the ball tapped back with Chris Kately catching this in the Hooker position and diving through to score his second.

All in all a great game of rugby to watch and with the score ending 10-24 a pretty fair reflection of what had gone on. Well done to all the lads!

First Period

Beckenham U18's:
Penalty: Anthony O'Rourke (10) - 15m
Park Langley:
Try: ? (10) - 29m
Conversion: ? (10)

Second Period.

Beckenham U18's:
Try: Liam Greene (14) - 8m
Conversion: Player 10 (10)
Park Langley:
Try: (?) - 17m
Try: Chris Kately (2) - 23m
Conversion: (10)
Try: Chris Kately (2) - 28m