Old Hamptonians 18

London Nigerian 49

There was no love lost between these two sides on Valentine's Day as this scrappy encounter stuttered along, punctuated with punches, until the Nigerians finally found peak form on the hour, running in nine tries in all.

Despite the resounding margin of victory, London Nigerian coach Francis Emeruwa was unimpressed.

If any of his charges thought that nine tries to two represented a good day at the office, they were soon brought to their senses by Emeruwa's post-match rollicking in the changing room.

Everything is relative, and, faced with a ponderous, rudderless Old Hamptonian side, Nigerians should have racked up considerably more points in what is turning out to be a desperate battle for promotion.

"Very disappointing", was Emeruwa's verdict. "There was no cohesion. Too many opportunities were missed and the boys didn't do the basics."

At times it seemed as though the Nigerians were 15 soloists with no conductor -- all flair and no judgment. Ever the slow starters, the visitors were 12-0 down after five minutes, having waved through two Hamptonian attacks down the right flank.

It took a typical burst by Anthony Essien to kickstart the Nigerians into action. The full back gathered Chris Pini's pass at pace to canter through some lame tackling for Nigerian's first try.

The home side had the better of the set piece exchanges and, in the second half, despite losing two front row players to injury, they dominated the Nigerians in the scrummage, but they had no answer to the running skills of their visitors.

The Nigerians opened them up time and again, breaking the first line of defence at will. Chris Pini, in excellent form on the left wing, went over for two tries, while Pinnington and David Essien scored tries which betrayed woeful Hamptonian defence.

Despite the 11 tries it wasn't a memorable match -- all blood, sweat and tears -- but with just two league matches to play it was a crucial result for the Nigerians who take will be in cup action at weekend.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.