Win away at Upminster, 11 December 2021

Travelers in need of refreshment after the long haul flight from Crow Lane found the Upminster bar full of very happy men in huge blue jackets. Not many of them made it out of the clubhouse to watch the rugby. Actually, this wasn’t a bad call, as the game was not one of your classics.

The Park pack started well, with Dwayne Lyn and captain Aidan Mersh taking advantage of quick ball, and carrying hard. Pressure was rewarded when Matt Taylor, showing admirable position discipline from full back, scored off the back of a ruck.

Unfortunately that was as good as it got in the first half. The Upminster pitch has a good slope on it. The time to score is when you have climbed the slope, taken off your crampons and reached the summit (fine view of Horndon, and Mont Blanc on a clear day - Baedeker). Park failed to take advantage of any field position they got, with a preference for forward passes. The U’s pack executed a limited game efficiently and well, pinning Park well into their half. A runaway converted try, followed by a penalty, meant that Upminster went in to half time 10-7 up. Park must have left at least twenty points on the pitch.

Park again started the second half brightly, and Kieran Bradley burst through the Upminster backs to score from a forty yard sprint. The try was welcome, but he never really recovered from the exertion.

Again, Park took their feet off the gas, and another breakaway try put Upminster ahead by 17-12. This was too much for coach Mitchell Smith, who took up position under the Romford posts, and from here he bellowed a fearsome tirade of oaths and imprecations. As the rain and mist drew in, you couldn’t really see Mitch, but he could be located on sonar, as Afrikaans curses billowed up into the air and rained down on the pitch.

To be fair, he had his work cut out keeping fifteen vaguely fit men in black and purple on the pitch. The side of the pitch was littered with hobbling Park players. So was the pitch itself. Luckily Upminster were beginning to tire. Maybe some of Mitch’s curses worked; maybe they just found it hard going up the slope. Captain Aidan heaved the ball over the line to put us 19-17 ahead with twenty minutes to go.

There the score stayed for more than fifteen minutes, as Park did all they could to avoid scoring. Nervousness spread like Omicron among the spectators. Twice the ball was knocked on over the line. A well functioning line-out chose this point to misfire. Again, Park left a shedload of points on the pitch. Finally, captain Aidan realised that he would have to score the bonus point try himself. Sighs of relief all round. Park were surely safe at 26-17

An extraordinary thing happened in the last minute of the game: a clinically taken Park try. As if to show that they could do it any time, but just chose not to, the Park pack drew in the Upminster defence in the approved manner, released the ball to the backs , who calmly put the ball through the hands for George Smith to score from the overlap. I don’t know how he then converted from the touch line. He surely cannot have been able to see the posts through the mist and the gathering gloom.

The Romford faithful headed for the bar to sing the club song to the happy men in blue jackets, secure in the knowledge that we wouldn’t need our nail scissors this week either.