Clean Sweep For Hoppers At The Lane

Seniors: First XV: 6th December 2025

On a day with a festive feel, Grasshoppers welcomed Harpenden and Ruislip to Syon Lane and came out on top in both games. The 1st XV kicked off from the school end and despite making a promising start, it was the visitors who struck first with an unconverted try following some G’s defensive confusion from an up and under.

This though sparked G’s into life and they took the lead with two converted tries, the first from a 5 metre lineout drive which saw hooker, Jack Walkenden come up with the ball and the second coming from second row James Kent who looked to have been stopped short of the line only to reach over the line to touch down. The conversions came from stand-off, Conor Gilmore to make the score 14-5.

This game was always going to be close given the team in 8th and 9th place and so it was the visitors who struck back with two tries and a conversion to move the score to 14-24. Then just before half time Jack Walkenden scored his second try, a carbon copy of the first and with the conversion from Conor Gilmore the half time score narrowed to 19-24.

G’s started the second half well as their forwards took control, with some excellent driving down the centre of the park. This bore fruit and built pressure on the visitors and so Jack Walkenden scored another two tries from lineout drives and with Conor Gilmore adding the two conversions to move the score to 33-24.

The visitors came back at G’s but their defense held despite some cavalier defending causing the supporters Christmas lunches to repeat on them and so it was G’s who struck the next blow when winger, Noah Bell followed what looked like a lost cause of a kick only to touch it down for an unconverted try to make it a seemingly unassailable lead of 38-24 but the visitors pressed and pressed but despite scoring another unconverted try to make the final score 38-29 leaving with G’s with the 5 points and the visitors with a single bonus point leaving both sides in the same league places but with G’s only 1 point behind the visitors on 22 league points.

G’s 2nds had a convincing win over Ruislip 45-24 with three tries from Chibueze (Harry) Atuegwa, two from Jack Dyer with tries from Stuart Partridge and Jamie Hope, then three conversions from Charlie Lecuyer and two from Jack Dyer. The game was played under "Game on” as Ruislip were short of players but it was important to get some rugby. Grasshoppers were in full control in the first half when the score was 31-5. The second half saw Ruislip drop to 10 players so G’s loaned them three to allow the game to continue so a big shout to Mick Whitehead, Peter Moore and James McLaughlin. The highlight was that another two Colts made their senior debuts, Alfie Swan Vella and Sami Boukrouh which now totals eleven senior debuts this season – a massive achievement for Peter Dymott who managed their transition. Player of the day was Colt Lewis Guri.    

G’s run into Christmas is away to Brunel University on 13th and at home to Belsize Park on 20th.