Warlingham finally returned to Hamsey Green to give high flyers Old Hamptonians a scare with their physicality before finally falling to defeat by flattering scoreline.

With the teams currently at opposite ends of the Counties 3 table, Warlingham’s large home crowd wanted to see their side upset the form. Playing just their second home game of the season, the club welcomed a full hall for lunch to thank their many sponsors and saw a curtain raiser from their Under 9s team.

Hamptonians, promoted twice in the last two seasons, showed why they had achieved success. Handling the ball cleverly and using width at every opportunity, the visitors gave their back three ample attacking chances and scored the opening try.

But Warlingham roared back with their pack to the fore in the wet conditions. Warlingham’s dominance in the tight owed much to their collective of rugged forwards Alex Nunn, Matt Healey, Harry Cave, Joe Kelly and Morgan Gillam driving the scrum forward and winning clean line out ball. From a catch and drive on the half way line, the Wars forwards pushed the opposition back and fractured the defence leading to a penalty for a maul infringement. Warlingham repeated the trick from 20 metres out, this time rolling and rumbling expertly and unstoppably with man of the match hooker Elliott Jones plunging over for a muscular try with a little help from his friends. A huge roar from the touch line lifted the side and welcomed George Britton’s conversion to take the lead.

Hamptonians continued to really trouble the hosts out wide with long looping passes to their dangerous wingers who got over in the corner and ended the half with an excellent try with a cross kick from their scrum hall landing in their right wingers hands. But Warlingham would not be deterred.

The second half was a titanic battle with bone-crunching tackles, strong runs to gain hard yards and a real wrestle for territory. From the bench, Matt Talboys epitomised the attitude the whole side demonstrated with Simon Townsend and Tom Street adding power to the pack. Back row Olly Wilson knocked Old Hamptonians back at every turn and turned over their ball and centres Britton and Noah Clay held firm in defence and played when the space opened up.

Fly-half Mark Chatfield was solid and sensible choosing good options on when to kick, pass and run. Scrum half Lewis Hazeldine began to snipe around the fringes. Wars’ back 3, challenged so much in defence, began to have more threat even from their own half. Cameron Sharp challenged his opposite number and Moses Biatsu skinned the visitors defence on more than one occasion. Warlingham’s ambition to play despite the attrition in the midfield gave them another try. Young fullback Harry Webzell sliced through the cover defence within his own 22 with a fend and great acceleration. Webzell was close to scoring but tackled just short and with excellent support Tom Street added the try out wide. A beautiful try. Britton’s conversion narrowly missed but Warlingham had a sniff of victory with a blueprint of hard work up front and class outside. However it was not to be. Hamptonians closed the game out with the scoreline flattering them somewhat.

Warlingham will look to build on this performance and find the elusive first win. Playing so well against a top team in the league gives the Wars confidence for the challenges ahead.