The cold weather over the last few days meant there was some doubt about the fixture, but by 11 o'clock the pitch was completely playable. We were very happy to welcome Dorking to play us at fairly short notice after Guildford had pulled out, and the game was to be a great one to watch; even, fiercely but fairly contested, and a very high standard for a B game. The game had hardly started when Alex "nosebleed" Browning had to come off for the usual reason and miss the first half. As he was able to come out for the second half, I have now devised a drastic but effective solution.

A chilly morning at Wimbledon, but the rain held off until everyone was in the clubhouse later. Effingham visited us for the second time this year, bringing their B side this time and getting an almost identical result, a victory by the narrowest of margins. The good relationship building up between our two squads is likely to continue with an A/B friendly next season, hopefully with Wimbledon running out the narrow victors next time.

Late November and T-shirt weather at Farnham, with a blustery wind and the slope of the pitch the only blemishes on perfect conditions for running rugby. A mention is surely due for injured fly-half Max Tomlinson, who has been a constant touchline presence and will hopefully be back with us next January. The pre-match team talk focused on the importance of starting well and with intensity - on todays evidence Wimbledon may finally be getting over their slow start bugbear.

With the fog descending on Wimbledon, the B team rolled out for only the second competitive fixture this year. A good run of games coming up now though, and next year I’ll try to avoid teams about to fold! The opposition were Reeds B, currently on a 100% record in their division and tough opponents who put us under pressure from the kick-off. There was some good defence from Matt Shaw and Elliot Phillips, and from a Reeds lineout Fraser Wilson stole their ball with a well-timed lift.

A perfect day for running rugby at Garratt Green; the ground was firm, the sun was shining and "dog s**t park" is clearly still suffering from a reputation acquired years ago, the pitch was fine. With the conditions suiting us, Wimbledon started very well. A great early run by Dom Suckling set the precedent for a day when the forwards would keep popping up in the back line - sometimes to great effect but sometimes at the expense of losing a ruck for lack of numbers, we will be working on this. Another run down the right set Lucas Strauss free but he was pushed out just short of the line.

Well, I have had to let it go. It seems that a lot of people were holding back on replying because they/their son was ill or injured and they weren't sure if they would be able to play. Some sort of bug seems to have gone around a lot of the touring squad.

Can I please ask you in those circumstances to reply with a 'maybe', as early as you can? It is just not fair on the opposition to have to cancel so late, we know ourselves what that is like. Not to mention the stress on Mark and myself, having to chase everyone down and try to plan a squad when half of the players haven't replied by midweek.

Training will be from 9:45 as usual: we have the bottom half of the up-and-down pitch.

See you on Sunday, if you are fit to play.
Martin

I would like to combine a brief report on the tour with our thanks to Dave for his huge efforts in organising it again this year. We have received some great feedback and some of the players felt it was even better than last year. We are already planning the next one!

After half a dozen false starts, the B team finally got its first competitive game of the season a week after the A's. Next year I will be assessing whether a team is likely to still be around to play us before arranging the fixtures; however we now should have a reasonably good run of games, weather permitting.

Normal time 6:30 to 7:45

The first league game of the season kicked off in almost perfect conditions, but for the still too firm ground. There followed a game too close to call and too exciting to look away from, with Wimbledon ending up on the wrong end of the narrowest of defeats; but with their heads high and having been in the lead twice.

The new season is nearly upon us, we will be training as usual at 9:45 on Sunday 4th of September.

Prior to that there will be Thursday training sessions on
18 August (good turnout)
25 August
1st September

18:30 at the club for a session of a bit over an hour.

Hope to see all of you down on the 4th if not before

A good turnout yesterday, considering the holiday and the demands of other sports at this late stage. We ran a touch rugby mini-tournament, followed by a review of the year and the end of season awards (below). Congratulations to Nick, Matt and Jack. Thanks to James for his great speech and to all of you for the fantastic personalised hoodies presented to the coaches. After a tug-of-war tournament (victory to the Backs by 2-1) there was a touch rugby game between coaches and players, with a narrow 7-6 victory to the players.

Those of you who took team photographs - if you can forward some to me I will publish them on the team website and Facebook page.

Next date in the calendar is the paintballing day on 4th June. If you have not done so already "Send the Cheque" to Dave and make sure the consent form is filled in.

The new season will officially begin on the 4th of September, however we are going to try to arrange some special sessions before that, with an emphasis on the rule changes which affect the forwards (mainly lifting in the lineouts). We are still unsure if we will be able to run Thursday sessions, but we will be in touch.

The 11th of September will be normal training but preceded by a sponsored run for those going on tour in October. Please get your sponsorship sorted out over the summer.

We look forward to seeing you all on the 4th of September if not before.

End of year awards 2011

Player of the Year
1 Nic Shuttleworth
2 Angus Bonner
3 three-way tie Max Tomlinson, Aidan O'Brien, Matt Rogers

Also nominated - James McGratth, Archie Watkins, Sam Codling

Most Improved Player
1 Matt Shaw
2 Cameron Wilkinson
3 Diogo Carvalho

Also nominated - Archie, Angus, Jodi, Alfie, Ellis

Best Newcomer
1 Jack Gleeson
2 Conor Coleman
3 Oli Hicks

This was the last league game of the season, and to lose to the eventual league winners is of course no disgrace. We were always going to be up against it having lost a lot of players to (mainly) the 7s tournament this weekend. However the lads who played on Sunday played hard, kept their heads up and represented their club with pride - we could not have asked for any more.

Firstly, let me say how great it was to see some of our long term (Louis, Harry) and short-term (Rob, James) injured players turn out to support the team on Sunday. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about encouraging team spirit, thanks for that. Also thank you for making sure we had a good contingent for the after-game meal (there will be proper tables and chairs from this weekend, we are promised!). Apologies to those players who did not get to play this week, we are at the mercy of the other teams I am afraid.

There were two good games we thought, both the Wimbledon and Effingham coaches were pleased with the quality of rugby and the test provided to our respective squads. Many thanks to Andrew Lewis for stepping in at very short notice to ref the B game today.

Next week is Farnham at HOME, normal start time and hopefully rather more of the squad staying for the after-match food in the clubhouse.

Wimbledon A 36 - 17 Effingham and Leatherhead A

Match report from todays league fixture. A hard-fought game, with a scoreline that does not reflect how close it was in the end. Despite the loss, we are completely safe in the division and with other results from today are still in with a shot at a promotion slot. The game was contested in the best of rugby spirit, and I am already in discssions to establish it next season as an A/B friendly.

A terrific performance by both the A and B teams resulted in two hard fought victories against a club who has beaten us in the league for the last two seasons in succession.

A good turnout today, despite it being the start of half-term. With the late pull-out by Wasps, we were fortunate to get a short-notice fixture against Old Reigatians. They are currently topping division 4 and we thought this would be a good chance to see how competitive in the league our Bs would be if we could raise the numbers for two squads. Welcome to new player Conor Coleman who made a good start at flanker today.

A narrow loss - much closer than the scoreline suggests - and a fantastic gritty performance from Wimbledon, with chances to come back in right up to the end of the game. The conditions prevented us from playing our natural game - Guildford had been praying for rain all week and they got it all right. I am reading from a soaked and blurred notebook to write this.

Starting with the wind and the slope in our favour, Wimbledon had the best of the early possession and were pushing Reeds back into their own half. An ill-advised kick into the wind by Reeds went straight to full-back Oli Moulton, who ran the ball straight back at them and evaded several tackles to score in the corner. The blustery conditions made kicking very difficult indeed, so we were now 5-0 up after Cameron narrowly missed the conversion.

Note there will now be NO session for those not travelling. Insufficient numbers even though we would have had enough coaches this time.

• Please be there by 12:00 or earlier
• Bring your blue team Polo shirt (everyone now has one)
• All Players are expected to shower and change for the meal after the game
• Expect a finish at 2:30 or later
• Please let us know ASAP if you now cannot make it or if you require help arranging a lift
• Directions are below
• Squad is as named below

Wimbledon B squad to play Reeds B

Oliver Hicks
Ellis Morgan
George Batchelor
Fraser Wilson
Jodi Smith
Jon Gallagher
Dominic Bellenger
Jack Gleeson
Eslam Djennad
James Jenkinson
Alex Browning (cover)
Diogo Carvalho (cover)

Alfie Jervis
Cameron Wilkinson
Matthew Shaw
Elliot Phillips
Lucas Strauss
Harry Sullivan
Oli Moulton
Jack Blyth
James Waghorn

Unfortunately Esher had to pull out of the fixture, as they needed to 'raid' their B squad for their league game at the weekend. We had a good turnout nonetheless, showing the continuing strength of this group. A big welcome back to George Batchelor after his broken collarbone. Welcome to new signup Huw Roberts, and commiserations to his school teammate Jack Durant who injured his wrist during the week but will hopefully also be joining us.

Training for whole squad from 9:45. Please treat this seriously, this is our last training-only session on the schedule at the moment.

Wimbledon 30 - 12 Chipstead

A great win against a Chipstead side who were looking for their first league win and whose results so far led us to expect a tight game. The spell of play where they scored twice in the second half showed us that they are a side to be taken seriously, and could have caused much more damage if our forwards had allowed them more of the ball. Overall a very good team performance, reminiscent of our first league game.

A frosty morning but the second team pitch was very playable by the time we kicked off at 11. It was extremely pleasing to see that of our entire squad, every single available player was there. Best of luck to the 4 lads at the Surrey trials, the 3 still recovering from broken bones and the 2 who were sick with the flu today. A big welcome back to Archie Watkins who is recovered from his broken hand and still in good form having practised his kicking regularly while injured.

We don't have enough coaches around to run a session, so there is no rugby this morning. We may run a session on 2nd Jan if there is sufficient interest - see the sign-up Event on our new Facebook group wmrfc2001.

This was one game where Wimbledon actually started the game well and dominated from the outset. The offloading, in the first half in particular, was as good as we have seen them play. An early move initiated by some good work between Jack Blyth and Matt Shaw was rewarded as we passed out to the wing for Oli Moulton to go over in the first 2 or 3 minutes. This was rapidly followed up when Angus Bonner stole the ball to release Charlie McKibben for a great break, scoring under the posts for Louis Hogan to convert the try and take us to 12-0 up with barely 5 minutes gone.

There will be no session for U15 this Sunday due to weather conditions. See you all next week, hopefully.
Martin

Due to frozen pitches the matches with Old Cats are off. We will be doing light/non-contact drills starting at 10:30 for a normal finish at 12:00 - BRING WARM CLOTHING

A good victory marred by an injury to prop George Batchelor, who I am sad to inform you has fractured his collarbone and will be out until mid-January. I am sure I can speak for the whole team in passing on our best wishes for a speedy recovery, and we will hopefully see George back with us for the Christmas meal if not before.

Firstly, commiserations and best wishes for a speedy recovery to two squad members who had to drop out at the last moment due to injury and illness: Fraser Wilson and Archie Watkins. Get well soon guys - and credit to those players who had to play out of position as a result, James Waghorn deserving particular credit both for stepping up to A team rugby and moving from wing to fullback.

Cancelled games have meant quite a layoff for at least half of the squad, and this was a great opportunity to get some game time in before the run of matches in November and December. Alleynians are reforming after losing a lot of players last year - they had to drop out of the league - and this was a good opportunity for them to try out their squad against decent opposition. From the evidence on the day, they will do just fine in Division 3. Also based on the day, our B guys would also thrive in Division 3 if only we could get enough of them out!

After a long run of training due to cancelled fixtures, we have a game against Old Alleyns this weekend. After the session, I would like the boys (parents welcome) to stick around for at least half an hour so we can go through the plans for the rest of the month. We would also like to spread some new team traditions around the whole squad.

Last Sunday was a good session we thought - we had a decent turnout of 20 players with more to come next week. If you were not there last week and are not going to be at the session on the 12th, please let Mark or myself know in advance.

This Sunday is a 9:15 start for those players going on the tour, so they can do their sponsored run. Everyone else for 9:45 as usual please.

Welcome back to the new season. We are looking forward to continuing our successes of last year, and perhaps even recruiting enough new players to enter two teams in the league at last. Clive has kindly agreed to deal with Registrations for our group again this year. See the emails and note on the home page about this years changed process.

See you on Sunday!

Please check the website frontpage; if we have to call off because the pitches are unplayable, the website will be updated by approximately 9 a.m.

Otherwise we will run a training session for ALL PLAYERS. Hope to see you there.

Training will resume on 10th Jan, see you all then.
Martin

Apologies, we have only one coach able to make it tomorrow so session is off.
regards,
Martin

All pitches unplayable including their alternate
Sorry but we have lost another fixture, here's hoping we have more luck next week.

Martin

Home training for all players - this is our last scheduled session with Chris and our last training session before the league fixture against Farnham; so a 100% attendance would be very valuable.

Thanks to the 13s for agreeing to share the pitch after the 2nd team pitch was flooded out. A good game against Reeds and a valuable training session from head coach Chris Yates. Match report to follow

Illness, injury and Remembrance Sunday depleted the Wimbledon ranks to 22, however this was still a disappointing result considering our recent victories. All credit to Mitcham who played strongly, out-muscled us especially in the second half and have definitely improved since we won last years corresponding fixture.

Mitcham arrived with a strong A/B team and by agreement we played the game with a largely B contingent in the first half and mainly A players in the second. The first half saw us go in 10-14 down, with the Wimbledon tries coming from Damian Cherry-Fox and Alex Browning. In the second half, Mitcham brought on some very strong 'A' standard players, who were too much for our already-tired pack and swapped-in A back line. Some missed tackles showed that this is still an area for more work in training. A late fightback from Wimbledon saw another good try from recently joined wing, James Waghorn

Taking some positives from the day, we were without several key players especially in the pack, and the boys never gave up at any point. A big thank you to Louis Hogan for filling in as hooker in extremis, we know he does not like it!

A rearranged fixture in appalling conditions at London Wasps, but the boys were undeterred and came out of the day with considerable credit. It was particularly pleasing to see that our turnout of 30 players was easily the highest of the 3 clubs; and that Wasps have now invited us for a friendly next season. Overall, the forwards did more than hold their own although we did cough up possession occasionally (hardly surprising given the conditions). The backs performance was a bit laboured but again the conditions weren't conducive to running rugby. We were able to play 3 shortened games on the day:

London Wasps A 0 - 7 Wimbledon A
Wasps probably dominated the first half, with Wimbledon playing with the wind and rain in their faces. The ball was held up more than once after Wasps camped on our line for considerable periods. Ben Cantello pulled off a textbook tackle to deny the Wasps fly half a certain try. In the second half, the deadlock was broken when Charlie McKibben picked up at the back of the scrum and ran two-thirds of the pitch to score. A great start to the day.

London Wasps B 19 - 0 Wimbledon B
A very strong-looking Wasps B side was too much for Wimbledon in the first half. All credit to our boys for bringing down the huge Wasps no16 on a couple of occasions, but they were still able to force through for 3 tries in the half. Coming out for the second half, a much improved Wimbledon performance had us prevent any further scores although we were unable to score ourselves.

Wimbledon A/B 12 - 7 London Welsh
The third game of the day saw us put out a strong A/B side against the Welsh. The first half was even, with the Welsh scoring to cancel out the excellent run and try by Sam Codling from the wing. In the second half, the result was secured by a speculative chip over the defence by Max Tomlinson that was chased down and grounded by Nick Shuttleworth who was particularly active in both attack and defence all day.

Finally the report would not be complete without mentioning the highlight of the day for most of the boys. Which was , of course, discovering a frog under a woodpile and chasing it for about 20 minutes before it finally made its escape.. .

Another Game of Two Halves, played in extremely blustery conditions in the far (sloping!) corner of Big Field. A highly depleted by half term, but still strong, squad of 19 Wimbledon players took on Dorking. The first half was very even; the first try by Aidan O'Brien was quickly answered as Dorking went over in the corner. James McGrath picked up from the back of the scrum and dodged several tackles to restore our advantage; but again Dorking came back and we went in at half time 14-10 down.

Wimbledon came out for the second half determined to make more of their dominance in the forwards. The scrum got stronger and stronger, winning all of our own ball and most of the oppositions; only the 1.5 metre rule saved Dorking from being pushed off every time. Shortly a good series of moves resulted in Damian Cherry-Fox charging over to restore Wimbledons advantage. Not long after that, some quick thinking by Matt Rogers saw him pick up near the Dorking line and power through to score. This time Aidan was able to convert probably the most difficult kick of the day in almost impossible conditions.

Dorking opted to kick a penalty, which turned out to be their last score of the game. With the score now at 17-22, Wimbledon opted to run their own next penalty, and Eslam Djennad steamrollered through to score. The backs got back in on the scoring as new boy James Waghorn built on last weeks good performance to score his first try for Wimbledon. Dorking were now visibly tiring, and Wimbledon piled on the points through a characteristic run from deep by Charlie McKibben and a second try for James McGrath. All in all an impressive performance against a team which beat us last season.

A very strong overall performance against a team who have been neck-and-neck with us for several years, and who beat us in last seasons fixture. Battersea were unfortunately unable to bring two sides as originally planned, so their one team played a 'game of two halves' against a mixed A/B Wimbledon team. In the first half, almost complete domination by the Wimbledon pack provided plenty of ball for the strong back line. Fast movement through the hands gave the ball quickly to Sam Codling who was able to run in two tries from the wing and was unlucky when an uncharacteristic drop caused him to miss out on his hat-trick. Some slick interchanges in the centres led to a try each for Robert Davies and Nick Shuttleworth. The outrageous one-handed pass behind his back by Nick can not go without a mention! The dominant pack got their representative on the scoreboard when Diogo Carvalho went over towards the end of the half.

In the second half, Battersea did well to come back at us after the back line were swapped out and some changes made in the pack. However Wimbledon were able to stabilise the situation after 3 quick tries from Battersea; by the end of the game the pack had re-asserted control, and Nick was able to cap off a fine overall performance with his second try of the day. Particular congratulations should go to Aidan O'Brien who managed a 100% record with the 6 conversions he made on the day.

A great first competitive game for our B team, a solid win over Richmond which is something to be proud of. The Wimbledon pack dominated throughout the game, and the fact that the scoreline did not quite reflect that is something for us to work on in future weeks. Of particular note was the strong running displayed by Ellis Morgan and Eslam Djennad; however the first half belonged to Alex Browning who ran in both of our tries in response to the early Richmond score and conversion.

The dominant performance continued in the second half, with Eslam powering over the line to finish off a period of sustained pressure, and Damien Cherry-Fox capping a storming performance - perhaps his best ever in a Wimbledon shirt - with a well-deserved try. However Richmond are a team never to be written off, and they came back late in the game with a try as their impressive fly-half ran through most of the Wimbledon team - some work to be done on tackling practice!

The back line were not to be completely overshadowed on the day, with Lucas Strauss making an impressive debut. James Jenkinson was unlucky not to convert an inventive punt over the advancing Richmond line into a try, after following his own kick. The report would not be complete without mentioning both the superb tap-tackle and textbook try-saving defensive tackle from Ben Cantello.

Overall a solid first outing for the Bs and a strong argument for some promotions to the A squad in the coming weeks.

We are going to have another go at this, given sufficient interest. With two more coaches joining us, we think we can run a session on Thursdays at about 6:30.

Can you let me know if you are interested in this please? We don't expect 25 kids, not least because a lot of them are playing or training 2 or 3 times a week at school. But we know quite a few of them only get rugby on a Sunday right now and might be keen on this. If we can get 15 on a regular basis we think the session is worth running.

Clive Davies has kindly agreed to once more look after the initial registrations, collect the forms and accept cheques/cash on Sunday mornings. If you can download and fill out the forms in advance that would do a lot to streamline the process. The form is on the website HERE

Welcome to the new season. Training will be at 10:00 sharp (show up at 9:45 please) on Sunday 6th September.

Enquiries to Martin and Mark Here
Martin 07778 511677
Mark 07966 192087