Blues made the relatively short journey to Grove last weekend and produced a somewhat stop start performance but still came away with a victory. How many times have we seen sides win when not playing at their best and in itself this is encouraging for Blues. There is a lot more to come from this team and there were a couple of passages of play that were simply outstanding. There is no question Paul Archer, James Macavoy, Nigel Beale and Will Harwood will continue to work with the players to try and get that cliched, "eighty minute performance," and when it comes it will be worth seeing. As an onlooker it is great to see the strong bonds that have developed throughout the team and after the match many of the squad were meeting up to celebrate the birthday of one of the players. Friendships, comaraderie, banter, all there in spades, win or lose. Well done lads.

Within 5 minutes of the start Blues went 5-0 ahead with a try by Oscar Astbury and they weren’t to relinquish the lead for the rest of the game.
The score line suggests a straightforward victory but nothing could be further from the truth. Grove dominated for periods of the game and when they came back to within 8 points on the half hour mark Blues knew they were in a game. Some of the tackling on both sides was quite ferocious but in the end Blues were too strong for the home side.
Blues scrum and line out functioned well and Man of the Match Kyle Doel carried strongly throughout the game beating a number of defenders with his footwork and power.
Whilst the score line looked good the players will know they could have scored more points had the back line functioned as well as they can. However when it came together Blues looked very impressive and they need to be applauded for scoring 7 tries against such a well organised team. Josh Winfield scored a hat trick of tries and Will Osborne, Harry Waye Branch and Tommy Martin scored the other tries. Tom Cole converted 5 of the tries.
Congratulations to all the players and this win will give the team confidence going into next week’s home game against Windsor. Stags also play next week away against Amersham and Chiltern II.
As always the travelling support was fantastic and many thanks to those who made the journey and thanks also to the generosity of the sponsors whose continued support is invaluable to the club.

Big thanks to Brian Lee for the report and keeping all match stats