After a couple of weeks enforced break – hopefully put to good use in accumulating some much needed brownie points - it was not surprising that there was a rustiness about our play for most of the first half, with dropped passes, turnovers and a general sloppiness in evidence.

Consequently, it took longer than we would have liked to put the result beyond doubt against a Birkenhead Park team that found themselves reduced to 13 men for the final quarter of the game.

In mitigation, our squad reflected a couple of late changes from that selected, with thanks due to Ding and James Niederbuhl for stepping up into the breach at such short notice.

Twenty five minutes passed before we were able cross the BP line – once again that man Hugo leading from the front, and when he repeated the feat 5 mins later, we thought BP`s resistance would be broken. However, an interception try for the opposition, shortly followed by another interception which nearly lead to a try suggested that we could not relax.

In the event, that proved to be BP`s final throw of the dice, with Hoppo – impressive in his unaccustomed position of No 8 – grabbing a try towards the end of the half. With Geary converting 2 of the 3 tries the half time scoreboard read 19-7.

The second half was a much more one –sided affair, our ball handling was materially improved. Hoppo quickly added his 2nd try, Robbie Wellock, who ran strongly throughout the afternoon, grabbed one, and so did Matt Faulkner. Hoppo then scored his 3rd before Hugo pounced to complete his hat- trick. With Geary, who demonstrated an impressive burst of speed on more than one occasion, to accompany some bullet – like passing, adding the extras the final score of 46-10 was an accurate reflection of the difference between the sides.

So, with only 1 game to go in the 1st round of games, our position near the top of the table is confirmed. However, with a number of very close results against the teams that we are likely to be playing in the New Year, we will no doubt experience a very challenging 2nd half of the season which will require a committed approach if we are to maintain the standards we have set thus far.

RJH