Great start to the festive season.

With the wind blowing a gale and offering a clear advantage to the home team in the first half, Finchley got the game underway on what was to prove to be a productive afternoon.

The men in red and grey showed their intent straight from the off with some good gain line breaks from back and forwards creating early pressure on the visiting team. One very pleasing element was Finchley's dominance at scrum with Alan Blake and Chris Onyilogwu proving to strong for their opposite numbers. This early pressure from Finchley resulted in the opening try from Finchley's number 3 crashing over from close range.

Finchley were then able to turn the screw on their opposition and run in 3 more tries before the 25 minute mark, securing a bonus point but with the conditions playing such a huge part on the day the win was far from nailed on.

The home team finished the half well and led Stevenage by 30 points.

The 2nd half began with Finchley now playing into the strong wind which pleasingly did not seem to deter the summers lane men and within the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half Finchley ran in 2 tries to further stretch their advantage.

With the conditions favouring Stevenage it was only a matter of time until they were able to make this count and spend some well needed time in the Finchley half of the field, this led to a 10 minute purple patch for the visitors who were able to run in 3 tries of their own.

This once again kicked started the Finchley team who were able to put together some fine passages of play to run in 2 more tries before the final whistle blew.

Final score: 51-19

This was a very pleasing performance to watch from the stand with all 18 men putting in a great effort in defence and stringing together some very fluid rugby in attack. On the day there were some very good performances from backs and forwards and in particular from the Finchley back row of McCarthy, Thomas and Mousley, these performance along with a good effort from the rest of the pack gave a great platform for Ben Simon to act as a stable link between forwards and backs and allowed the 9 to make some excellent runs, this led to Simon being awarded Man of the Match.

Next week sees the men from summers lane travel to Grasshoppers with a chance to turn over one of the teams above them in the league and if Finchley can put together some of the rugby they showed today then they will surely have a good chance of getting another win in December.