Stevenage fall hard at Summers Lane.

Personnel changes and injuries saw some new faces to the 1st team for the 2-13-14 season with Cornel Opariuc, James Molloy and Manny Tobin getting their first starts of the season.

Finchley got off to a good start with the Romanian 9 kicking the ball beyond the Stevenage defence to touch down after 10 minutes, Tuft converted.

It was clear early on that Finchley had a real opportunity to put a good score on the Stevenage 15 and recoup some of the points that were lost with the removal of the London New Zealand result. This came more apparent when Brendan Moore crashed over in the corner, after some good work from Drew Williams and Dan Young out wide, conversion missed 12-0.

Following this good start to the game Finchley once again got dragged into a dog fight with big hits and punches being traded. This led to Cornel being sin binned after 23 minutes, leaving Finchley with 14 men for the remainder of the half. This put a stop to the free flowing rugby that Finchley had produced in the first 20 and led to Stevenage scoring a break away try and converting.

Although, Cornel ‘The Elbow’ Orpariuc was not to be outdone, scoring a superb individual try just prior to half time, converted by Tuft.

Half time 19-7

After the resumption the men from Summers lane soon found their stride with some good work from the pack leading to David Tuft going over under the posts, Tuft converted.

After this Finchley never looked back and some excellent work from the back row and Cornel at 9 led to a forwards try through Will Dalton.
Finchley then once again slipped into a quiet period of the game with no real advantage forthcoming.

Things were rounded off nicely when a great move from the scrum sent Dan Young down the wing for him to pass back inside to Cornel for the 9 to go over for his hat trick.

Final score 45-7

This was a pleasing report by Finchley that had some good points and good finishing, although at times lapses in concentration proved frustrating for captain Joe Mclatchie and coach James Clarke.

There were some good performances by Williams, Young and the ever consistent Collingwood but the MoM had to go to the man from Romanian for his stunning hat trick.

Next week sees Finchley travel away to Fullerians looking to keep the momentum going and make it 4 wins out of 4 before the Xmas break.

(Apologies if I have got facts in this report wrong, got absolutely smashed on Saturday night and have forgotten a lot!!!)