Park played Mavericks on an overcast day at Crow Lane, with not a breath of wind to disturb the rude chatter on the touch line. We were 0-7 down after two minutes, when Mavericks – as they are entitled – used the advantage of a Park man on the ground to create an overlap, and score down their left wing.

And that is where the score stayed till half time. Play ebbed and flowed between the two 22s, carried aimlessly by penalty decisions. Neither side really looked like scoring. Park put together some good phases in the middle of the pitch. Both Teddy Duke and Ben Wrigg put their heads down and carried well. And the supporting players were quicker to come along than last week. Man of the match Finn had a good game at 9, throwing the ball out quickly, and making a complete nuisance of himself with the ponderous Mavs 9. Once within sight of the Mavericks’ line though, Park seemed to run out of ideas about how to get over it. This has been a constant problem this season. So HT 0-7.

Having missed a kickable penalty in the first half, George Smith atoned for his sins by putting one over early on in the second half. 3-7.

The rugby then returned to the aimless drifting of the first half, until Mavs dropped the ball near touch on our 10 meter line. Logan Petrie picked it up, and hared off for the posts. Mavs have nobody with that turn of pace, and Romford’s faithful cheered him on to what looked as if it would be a great solo try. Sadly he failed to ground the ball properly.

For some reason, Park’s pack were riled by this, and began to play with unusual fire. Picking up the clearance kick, Park laid siege to the opposition line. Mavericks could only keep us out by infringing; we had a string of penalties close to the line; a Mavs man was binned. Finally, Park remembered that one of the officially sanctioned ways to score is to get the ball out to Jack Rickwood goal hanging near the posts. He knows what to do, and crashed over to score. 10-7.

Could we hold out the remaining five minutes? It would have been nice to win, but those of
Romford’s faithful who have been scarred by recent matches had this nagging feeling that Park would find some stupid means of throwing the game away. It was looking quite hopeful for a while.

We had successfully wasted two minutes, and we had a penalty on the half way line. Unfortunately George Smith missed his touch, and Mavs broke through on our left wing. Several tackles were missed. When Park did manage to bring the Mavs’ runner down, there were huge holes in our defence, and when the ball was recycled, Mavs’ 10 ran through to win the game. 10-14.

So another game played, another game lost. We at least played with a bit more spirit than last week. Mavs will be laughing all the way back to Warley, not just at the appalling Hawaiian shirts on display in the bar, but also because we have gifted them both games this season by failing to ground the ball.

The strange thing is that, despite losing every game since December, we still seem to be in roughly the same position in the league. There are three possible reasons for this:
a) The sides below us are even worse than we are. This doesn’t really stack up, as both Mavs and Upminster have beaten us;
b) We had done enough in the autumn. This did not look likely at Christmas;
c) We have a cunning plan. I have finally realized what the plan is. Our coaches are really
smart. They have decided that a large number of losing bonus points, combined with other
teams conceding walkovers, will be enough to see us through. Dash clever.