Early blow for Hampstead in defeat at Chiswick

Hampstead’s season got off to the worst possible start as injury, unavailability and a sub-par performance all contributed to a heavy 69-10 loss at Chiswick in London North-West Division Two.

After a strong pre-season, the Parliament Hill outfit found themselves without seven first-choice players and paid the price as Chiswick ran in 11 tries.

Hampstead started brightly and Morgan Clement converted an early penalty, while a Jon Beswick try left the visitors firmly in the game at 10-10, but they then conceded seven tries without scoring.

“It was a tough one to take for the first game,” said skipper Max Rawlinson. “But we’ll write this one off as we had such an unfamiliar team out and came up against a strong Chiswick side.

“A lot of our big players are back next week so we expect a much better display.”