The Met continued their great start to life in Surrey Two with an impressive victory over long-time bête noir, Bec Old Boys. It was a hard fought game, ultimately decided by the boot of Met No.10, Sam Druce. Will Jarrett scored two first half tries, Bec responded with tries an hour apart, but the Met were always in the driving seat thanks to much greater strength and power in the pack. Even when the Met found themselves down to 13 players for several minutes following yellow cards for James Dyson and Dylan Richards shortly after half-time, the home pack and the all-round defensive performance kept Bec at bay. Bec always looked dangerous when the ball found its way to Jamie Tukiri. The winger broke the Met line in the 11th minute following some woeful defending by the Met's outside backs but generally Cormac Healy marshalled the defence with a high level of aplomb and the blue shirts put in an excellent shift across the field.
It was a first appearance for the Met's back-row combination of Jarrett, Ferguson and Richards and, apart from the latter's yellow card, their performance was outstanding. Bec struggled round the fringes while scrum-half Kofi Butcher released his runners astutely to continually push the Old Boys onto the back foot. Conor Finch made a promising debut at outside centre, while Ben Buxton, Dan Dacre and John Duggan all made promising contributions from the bench.
Referee Ross Stander had a busy afternoon, although the game was played in an excellent spirit. The young official's whistle never got in the way of the free-wheeling ebb and flow of two teams who appear well-matched, even though Bec's early league position belies the fact. This was the type of close game that the Met would have failed to close out in previous seasons. When Bec crossed for what turned out to be the only try of the second half, the home crowd may have feared the worst but the Met remained composed and continued to do the basics slightly better than their opponents to close out the well-deserved victory.
Elsewhere, Old Wimbledonians put paid to the league's last 100% record by thrashing Old Caterhamians, preventing the latter from collecting a bonus point into the bargain. The Met will be hoping that next weekend's trip to Caterham will keep the pressure on Wimbledonians as a gap opens up behind the top three.