Three Wise Men from Romford’s faithful saw a star in the East. Well, from their observatory in Crow Lane it must have been to their West actually. Anyway, as it was Saturday, they decided to follow it. Being warned in a dream that the traffic was awful, they travelled not by car, but on the Tube. And the star came nicely and slowly to rest over Eddie Goobie at Memorial Park, where Park were due to play East London.

It would have been helpful if the dream had also warned us not to bother travelling, as this was not an auspicious day for Park to play rugby. Park leaked over 30 points in a terrible first half. The backs, normally so reliable in defence, seemed to have no confidence in the man on either side, and missed a string of tackles. The handling was no better in attack, with too many balls spilt, and over-ambitious passes missing their target. East London had two fast, strong wingers, and between them they won the game in the first half hour.

The first try came from a good sequence of passes down the right wing, with several tackles missed. The second was gifted by Park handling errors. The third was a runaway try from a missed tackle on their 22. The fourth was again gifted by a Park knock-on when we were for once in a reasonable position. The fifth came from three missed tackles all the way down the left wing.

In the middle of all this, Park managed to pull one back. We made our way into the East London 22 courtesy of a penalty. The pack worked the ball to the middle of the pitch, and made several pushes for the line. Barney Sparkle finally wrenched the ball away from the pack. He was about to pass the ball out when he noticed a five yard hole in the defence in front of him, and decided it was easier to put it down.

The half time score was 32-5 and Park were in disarray with a cricket score on the cards. But East London had their five points. They had done all they needed to do, and took their foot off the gas, quite happy to play bash gently in the middle of the pitch.

They did this successfully for the first twenty five minutes, but then their pack started to tire. Park’s front row got right on top in the set piece, pushing East London backwards. We also put together some effective rolling mauls. Micky James took advantage of the momentum, and scored two pushover tries.

Connor Sullivan had a good game on one of his sporadic appearance in the first team, putting himself in the right places and tackling well. He even earned us a penalty for a high tackle when an East London player failed to make the extra yard down.

Park actually won the second half. The revival came too late to win the game, but Romford’s faithful began to have visions of a bonus point. This was fanciful. Instead East London decided that enough was enough, and gave the ball to their left wing, who ran through several missed tackles to score.

The score at the end was 42-15. This was not even a strong East London side. There was nothing to be done but to drown our sorrows in the bar. And there was some excellent Jamaican chicken.