Warlingham suffered a disappointing league defeat on the road to a London French side seemingly reinvigorated by their national team’s start to the Six Nations championship, writes David Halliwell.

The visitors played their part in an open, expansive and entertaining game in near perfect conditions by the banks of the Thames. Despite falling to an early French try in the corner, Warlingham camped in the host’s 22 for long periods, somehow failing to get over the line in the first half. Forward dominance, especially in the scrum, from Warlingham’s experienced front row of Matt Healey, Alex Nunn and Simon Townsend went close with push over efforts. Healey’s heavy hitting in the tackle and dynamic efforts in the loose kept the pressure on for the Wars.

Man of the match fly-half Louis Rossi-Jones kicked skilfully for territory and found space out-side with long passes that created chances for winger Cam Sharp and full-back Terrell Palmer-Simpson, but the French showed strong resistance. Back rows Nick Hammond, Adam Downie-Keen and Olly Gill broke tackles in the midfield offering forward options for evergreen scrum-half Alex Glover to drive Warlingham forward but despite their best efforts close to the line, the score would not come. Having survived Warlingham’s best efforts, French marched down the field and came up with two tries before the break to add to the visitors' frustrations. 17-0 at half time to London French.

Stern words at half-time seemed to immediately galvanise Warlingham, and the previously elusive score quickly materialised early in the second stanza. Captain Olly Wilson burst onto a pass in the middle of the park and the inside centre beat a number of French defenders with brute force, footwork and pace before eventually being hauled down close to the line. From the resulting quick ball, winger Jonah Clay raced down the left flank to dive in at the corner. Rossi-Jones' conversion from the touch line put the Wars back in the game and lifted spirits.

Despite a further French try through their strong running forwards, Warlingham would not give up and continued to push for a fight back win. Jackson Stevens started to find space and break out of his own half with his elusive running. Roy Hart and Mark Chatfield on from the bench offered pace and direct threat with Lew Brown’s destructive defence signalling that the game’s best try wasn’t long in coming.

Second row Harry Cave’s rangy running opened up the defence inside his own half and his offload to young Tom Worrall sent the prop dashing up field. Worrall exchanged passes with Spencer Clifford who continued the attack with slick hands back inside to Stevens to find Nick Waterton on the wing. As the cover came across, the Wars generated quick ruck ball to Rossi-Jones and his inch perfect high cross-field kick to the opposite wing found Wilson hitting the ball at pace and touching down beneath the posts for a converted try. With just 10 points in it, time on the clock and Warlingham’s attack seeming to have clicked into gear, hopes were high.

But it was not to be. A few handling errors and penalties in the pursuit of turning over the ball quickly took the momentum gained away and French ran in a last play try in the corner to put the icing on the cake for their 31-14 win.

Plenty of lessons to learn and targets to be set for the run-in to the end of the season for the Hamsey Green club. Warlingham’s next home game against Woking offers the first opportunity to make amends on 28 February.

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