Old Pauline vs Cambo G&T's

Camberley Gin and Tonics Vs Old Paulines Match Report
On a cold, drizzly Sat morning, the Gin & Tonics looked to finish the year in style by heading to Thames Ditton to face Old Paulines.
Despite a few regular faces missing, the strength in depth of this year’s G&T’s showed through and we still managed to field a match day squad of 22, with a little help from Risey and two of his flock. The same could not be said of Old Paulines, who on arrival informed us that they could only rustle up 12 for the fixture. In the true spirit of Rugby, after much debate, we gave them two stalwart squad members, Glen Holland and Nick Johnson, and the fixture was on.

Cambo started in good form, using big runners to punch holes, and a clearly superior pack started to make the difference, with every OP’s scrum being turned over and some heavy rumbling rolling mauls making ground. Against a much younger backline, Camberley legends Tony Harbour and Toby Saunders, forming a centre partnership that many on the touchline were remarking resembled Tindall and Greenwood, were making inroads.

Camberley got the scoring under way when Ben Glossop, typically selfish, crashed over from short range following more good work from the pack.The Cambo pack clearly felt some seasonal good will as they proceeded to let OP’s actually win one of their own scrums. So surprised were the three quarters that OP’s went fully 60 yards down the blind side to level the scores, despite a Forest Gump style chase back from Tony Bones. OP’s then utilised their youthfulness to score again quickly, taking the lead against the run off play

Some home truths under the posts from Cambo and it was back to basics, a series of drives taking them to the 22, resulting in the ball being spun wide to Saunders. Clearly demonstrating that form is temporary, class is permanent, he ghosted through the defence to level the scores.

A further 5 metre scrum resulted in Graeme Flemming scoring from close range and Cambo went in at the break ahead.
The second half was a more open affair, with Richard Mugford rolling back the years to barrel over from fully 22 metres out and Andy Dowan with a trademark show and go to go under the sticks.

Cambo were starting to get into their stride now, with the forwards making some hard yards through the channels, but the final passed seemed to always go down. Ben Lucas nearly sneaked in on the wing for a couple, and with Andre Vernon dropping one over the line the match looked to be petering out. Cometh the hour cometh the men, Rob Smart, on for an injured Saunders, danced over from 30 metres out and Andy Wreakes repeated the feat in the final minutes to seal another win.

The G&T’s next fixture is a table topping clash with Esher on Jan 6th at Watchetts