This was as evenly matched a fixture as one could have wished for. The deciding factor was the concession of kickable penalties, and the Met never quite managed to find the right side of referee Alex Lambe.
Mr Lambe had quite the afternoon. In the 4th minute and despite his shocking pink jersey, the referee found himself swept up in a loose maul and spent 14 minutes receiving treatment to his knee. It very nearly happened again in the second half but Mr Lambe spun like Chris Robshaw on Strictly Come Dancing to avoid a second clattering. In nine second half minutes, Mr Lambe issued three yellow cards and marched Old Blues backwards 20 metres. The game ended just as the opening bars for Sports Report on Radio 5 rang out.
On a windless afternoon, Sam Druce opened the scoring for the Met when Old Blues were penalised for holding on. Alan Nicholls levelled with the first of three penalties that the Met conceded in front of their own posts. Thereafter territory and possession flowed back and forth for most of the first half. Old Blues showed excellent handling skills behind the scrum, while the Met were as resilient as ever in defence, and benefitted from an excellent all-round display at scrum-half by Tom Jones. One might think this was not unusual for Jones but it was his debut at No9 and he was sporting a damaged hand from the warm-up.
The Met demonstrated a massive improvement on the set piece travails suffered at Old Walcountians but were unable to convert the set piece ball into points. Old Blues were mobile and aggressive with and without the ball and the Met were unable to create any real space. Met's best moment came with a glorious 40metre counter attack by full-back Cormac Healy but it was undone by a dearth of support. In hindsight, the Met skipper may feel he could have gone 18metres more and finished it off. It was Old Blues who broke the deadlock, a series of phases eventually gathering forward momentum for the visitors and No8 Kachi Udokporo driving over the Met line.
The second half was just as pendulous, with the added jeopardy of the referee's increasingly strident whistling. A couple of minutes in, Nicholls had the easy job of kicking his second penalty but then the odds tilted in the Met's favour. Two yellow cards in quick succession, to flanker Joshua Heath and lock Seb Huff, exacerbated by an injury to right wing Axel Zamma, should have opened the door for the Met but Old Blues did a remarkable job of pinning the Met in their own 22. A horrible home lineout piled on the pressure and, as Old Blues probed the left corner, Will Ferguson received a yellow card for a high tackle. It was the only phase of the afternoon where Ferguson was not up with the play so it was an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. Slightly rattled, and with their lineout compromised by the loss of their rangy No.7, the Met conceded a third kickable penalty to find themselves down 3-14 after an hour, despite retaining a man advantage.
As both sides were restored to a full complement, Old Blues surged over for their second unconverted try, claimed by at least three of the forwards after a driving maul out-muscled the Police. Met replaced debutant wing Milligan with Kallum Rees and although any form of bonus point appeared out of reach, the Met were not done. Old Blues lost their composure a little, arguing Mr Lambe's every decision, and it seemed only a matter of time before someone would have to take a walk but it never materialised. Druce and Jones inched the Met into Blues territory and eventually Sunni Jardine receiving the ball in a sliver of space, bounced and out-paced all defenders to run-in the Met's first try, giving Druce an easy conversion in front of the posts.
Although the Blues skipper thought his team were further ahead than they actually were, the last eight minutes were phrenetic. Richards, Gardner and Short drove, tackled and wrestled like sumo's from the Royal Albert Hall, and debutant blind side Barney Clarkefinished off a perfect catch and drive from a lineout to claim the Met's second try. Druce landed the conversion to put the Met back in bonus point territory and even a sniff of outright victory. But it was a shade too much to ask of the Met. Unable to get the ball into Jardine's hands, the Met could not get back into Blues' half. As desperation set in, the Met conceded yet another penalty for Nicholls to open the gap to five points with two minutes remaining. The Met powered towards the visitors' line but a careless penalty on the 22' allowed Nicholls to relieve the pressure. A lineout and three more phases on the Met's 10metre line saw the Met infringe again and Blues joyfully booted the ball out of play to claim a hard won victory.
Elsewhere Chipstead defeated the league leaders OH Exiles to keep the top of the table very tight. Old Blues climb a point above the Met with just 8 points separating the top 8.