Derby day delight for Richmond as London Scottish’s misery continues

A clinical first-half performance from Rob Powell’s outfit helped them to an impressive 31-12 victory over their tenants in the RFU Championship. 

It was the landlords who got their names on the scoresheet early on as Jared Cardew marked his return with a try. The score was more than deserved with Richmond dominating the possession and territory early on, pinning London Scottish back in their own half.

However, it was during the proverbial ‘hosts’ first real spell of danger that they were able to hit back. Scottish found their breakthrough by exploiting a gap in the Richmond defensive line allowing Leo Fielding to level the scores.

Matt Williams’ side lacked the defensive prowess to keep themselves level for long and allowed Huw Worthington to break the line and find the killer pass to James Hadfield to regain the lead for Richmond. Soon after, a relatively meager lead developed into a commanding one as the ‘visitors’ found a further two scores to take the game near on out of sight.

Firstly, Richmond demonstrated physical dominance with a maul that was simply too hot for the Scottish defence to handle. Richmond captain Mark Bright directed it before touching down for his 12th try for the club. From experience to youth as former Leicester Tigers academy product Will Kaye took the game by the scruff of the neck for his side and picked out a pinpoint accurate kick to find Owain James to score in the corner.

Within 10 minutes of the second half, the game was all but lost for Scottish. Harlequins loanee Lennox Anyanwu showed his Premiership quality with his lightning-fast reactions to get the ball out of his grasp and find Kaye who sold a dummy and ran through to claim a try.

The sting of the derby had been extracted by a thoroughly professional performance, and as a spectacle, the game spiraled into a scrappy affair, which very much suited the landlords. There were small remnants of positivity for Matt Williams to dissect in the way his Scottish side were able to defensively shut out Richmond, but unfortunately, that was about as good as it got until they found what would only manifest a consolation.

It was the boot of Stephen Kerins that found Noah Ferdinand to go over in the corner, and the crowd started to believe that the most impossible of comebacks was on. Renditions of ‘Flower of Scotland” broke out as the Scottish looked to claim an unlikely second victory of the season, but Richmond ran down the clock and made the remaining minutes scrappy to avoid any comeback gaining traction.

That victory marked Richmond’s fourth straight victory over the most local of rivals, completing a double-double over the Championship’s bottom club. In truth, the visitors just had that cutting edge and composure infant of their opponent’s try line and ultimately the nine-minute spell in the first half that returned three tries for Rob Powell’s outfit won them the game.

As far as derby games go, this one had its moments and there were a few late outbursts of frustration from Scottish that led to the obligatory helping of handbags, but Richmond did a great job of stagnating the game and not allowing their rivals out of the box. The faux ‘hosts’ showed glimpses and got the crowd excited on a few occasions, but lacked the finishing instinct to make this a more competitive game.

Up next, Richmond will look to make it two wins from two at the Richmond Athletic Ground as they host mid-table Bedford Blues. Meanwhile, London Scottish continue their search for win number two of the 2021/2022 campaign as they travel to Hartpury University.

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