MIDDLESEX MERIT DIVISION SIX: SNOBs Mitres 12 London Italian 20

St Nicholas Old Boys Mitres lost a close game against newly formed London Italian RFC in the opening second team league game of the season, in Middlesex Merit Table Division 6.

SNOBs started the game strongly with back row Chris Creak and debutant Tom Woods imposing their physicality on the visiting side.

The large SNOBs pack enjoyed dominance at the set-piece, pushing the London Italian side off their own ball at the scrum and turning over Italian ball at the line-out.

But SNOBs were unable to turn this early domination into points, and London Italian grew in confidence, culminating in a fine try just before the half-time break to give the visitors a 5-0 lead.

Fly-half Stuart Wood fell just short of the line when taking a quick re-start before the visiting side had set themselves, and was unfortunate to receive a bad injury to his wrist in the process.

A lack of discipline cost SNOBs dear early in the second half, when debutant centre Ben Ardouin was yellow-carded for tripping the London Italian winger.

Minutes later, captain Chris Creak also saw yellow for arguing with the referee, bringing the home side down to just 13 men for a crucial ten-minute period.

London Italian capitalised on this , and scored two further tries, making good use of their extra players.

Trailing 15-0 with a half hour to go the game looked to be beyond SNOBs' reach, but some committed rugby from the home side saw second row James Yates crash over the line from a rolling maul to bring the scores back to 15-5.

A master class in tactical kicking from fly-half Barry Hall pinned the Italians down, and from a scrum, SNOBS number eight Sean Gourley peeled off and offloaded to scrum-half Stuart Evans who touched-down in the corner. Hall converted - 15-12.

A fantastic individual try from the London Italian fly-half made it 20-12. SNOBs' Creak was unlucky to have a five-metre penalty disallowed, as the referee judged the ball did not leave his hand, and despite dominating the final quarter, the Mitres were not able to get on to the scoreboard again.