The standout team from the club start of the season has been the Women’s+ 2nd team, playing in their second season in a league (NC3 South East East). In their four league games to date, they have scored more than 50 points in each with a stunning points difference of 192 points over 4 matches.

They also comfortably dispatched Tunbridge Wells Women in a friendly last weekend, their challengers for the league Old Ruts pushed their fixture into the New Year. The team, led by Freddie Formichi and Keira Allen-Anderson, has developed an explosive brand of rugby, with excellent systems and getting the ball to some serious firepower in the backs. They have also been recruiting well, identifying some great new talent that they’ve been pipelining into the 1st team squad.

The 2nd team have an away fixture against Stanford Le Hope Ladies on 15th December, and on 5th January we will be hosting our first ever Supporters’ Lunch at the club for the Women’s+ 2nd team in their home fixture against Bexley – ticket link at the bottom of this article. Coach Aidan Wickham is ambitious for the 2nd XV, in both their playing style and their future potential, and has been clear that they will be targeting promotion this season.

Men's 1st Team

The Men’s 1st XV have had a mixed start to the season, having seen retirement from a few of the ‘old guard’ at the end of last season. Led by clubman Max Thomason, the teamsheet has varied a fair amount from week to week, with the team aiming for greater consistency going forward. Whilst there have been some narrow victories (25-22 vs Warlingham, 31-36 away against London Media), there have also been some narrow losses (43-40 away vs Economicals) and even a 27-27 draw against Old Georgians.

The team have a busy run up to Christmas, beginning with a home game this Saturday against Law Society, with a President’s Lunch beforehand, and the England game in the Autumn Internationals on in the bar afterwards. The Men’s 1st XV then has four more games in the run up to Christmas, including 21st December away against Warlingham. With the points relatively tight in the middle of the table, Streats will be looking to bump into the top half over the next month.

Women's+ 1st Team

The Women’s+ 1st XV have also had a mixed start to the season with three good bonus point wins, combined with two tough away losses. They did however manage to break their poor away form with a solid bonus point win against Blackheath this weekend, and they will hope to continue this with some of the greater distance games later in the season. Coming up the 1st XV have two home games – on 24th November vs Guildford and 8th December vs Barnes – before travelling to Hammersmith & Fulham on 15th December in their last game before Christmas. We hope that the 8th December home game will be a double header, with the 2nd team playing in a friendly against Ironsides on the same day.

Player stats

From a stats perspective, Kirsten Johnson currently tops the try scoring charts with 8 tries, 7 for the Women’s second team and 1 for the firsts. Talismanic player number 8 Chris Collcutt currently tops the Men's try scoring charts with 6, and last season’s top try scorer Sab Harvey is nipping at Kirsten’s heels with 6 of her own. With Kirsten and Sab also taking on kicking duties on occasion, they are all challenging Men’s 1st XV fly half Adam Sheehy for the top points scorer who is currently sitting on 51 points.

Other news

The Women’s+ squad also recently welcomed down England Rugby Red Rose Sadia Kabeya to a training session, who is currently recovering from an injury that will hopefully have her back in form for the Rugby World Cup next year that is being hosted here in England.

Lunch tickets

Tickets for all lunch events are available here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/streathamcroydonrugbyfootballclub