CS’s hopes of coming away with a surprise win against second placed London Irish Amateurs were effectively dashed in a disastrous ten minute period immediately after half-time.
The Stags had up to the interval defied their lowly position in the table and to turn round just five points down with the conditions as they were was quite an achievement. A gusting westerly wind was blowing hard and any well struck kick could go dead as unfortunately CS, in the second half, were more than once to find out to their cost.
In the first half by contrast they had harried and hounded their opposition into making mistakes and had played sensible keep ball when they could, only spreading it wide when it was safe to do so. One such opportunity had produced a well worked try for Matt Gibson as the last man out wide and James Houstoun had also later found a hole in the Wild Geese’s defence and - whilst London Irish had scored two tries themselves, one converted, and a penalty to be 10-15 to the good - that did not look like the sort of lead that was going to be at all easy to protect. The Wild Geese had really not used the wind at all well and surely CS would now be in a position to pen them back?
But then, instead of the gap narrowing, it widened as the Stags conceded a string of seemingly needless penalties and also neglected to take on board the ease with which a kick downfield could go dead. Throw a couple of strange line-out calls and/or failures to catch into the mix and - far from putting the opposition under pressure - ten minutes into the second half the visitors had increased their lead by ten points to 10-25, , with a penalty and then a converted try. Indeed the position might well have been even worse as another relatively easy shot at goal – as much as anything could be said to be easy in the awkward wind – had been missed.

This though was then the cue for the Stags to find some more of their first half dog again and to come back into contention with a simple penalty to bring the gap down to two scores, followed by a Joe Clarke try, converted, to reduce it to just one.

Sadly the ebb and flow continued and for the Stags it was to be low tide when the final whistle went as the Wild Geese had by then crossed for what was for them their try bonus point, at the same time taking the home side out of losing bonus point range.

Life can be hard and – as Guernsey beat Westcliff - CS were bottom of the table again. With London Irish still eying a play-off spot or better even and the Stags now the worst placed of the five potential relegation candidates, who knows when the two sides might next meet again!

CS Rugby 1863 scorers:
Tries:
Gibson
Houstoun
Clarke
Con : Cleary
Pen: Cleary