The men's first XV showed glimpses of what the future may hold with a victory over 5th Placed Battersea Ironsides in the their final league game of the season. A tough campaign that has seen the men relegated to level 7 for the first time since 2008 ended with an impressive victory over their high flying visitors in an entertaining game.

The day started with the return of the annual cap presentation. Former players Craig White & Dan Foley joined Ben Timson, Niall Clifford, Henry Bird, Anthony Catchpole and Caolan Watts-Adams of the current squad in receiving their caps for making over 100 appearances for T's.

A bumper crowd was in attendance at Oakfield as the VP lunch was combined with a Vet's Buffet in Bar 1928. We also had the Under 7's & 8's taking part in a training session before taking their place as mascots for the Men before the game kicked off.

In terms of T's, this season has seen a total of 46 players used over the 22 games, driven by injuries & availabilities and this game saw even more changes. Young Bill Bailey took his place amongst the finishers as he looked to become the 15th player to debut for the club this season. Fresh off his success with the London & South East Under 18s and Essex under 20's, the youngster is definitely one to watch.

The game started off in poor fashion for T's as they quickly found themselves 19-0 down in the first 20 minutes. Coach, Darryl Worster has been rolling back the years in the last month and was impressive once again at scrum half, grabbing an important try before half time to give T's hope. Harry Reynolds struck a sublime conversion from the touch line in windy conditions.

T's started the 2nd half strongly and scored shortly after kick off through Caolan Watts-Adams. The 2nd rower has been showing his versatility this season, having to often fill in at Centre and impressed once again as he bust through the would-be tacklers to score under the posts. Reynolds was once again successful with the conversion.

T's next score was superb as some great handling saw Malachy Watts-Adams' spread the ball wide to Dan Ulph who sprinted down the side line. The returning Ulph drew the last defender before off loading to Captain, Kodie Holloway to run in and bring the scores level. Reynolds brought up another personal milestone with the conversion as he became the first T's player since record points scorer Jake Barrand in 2020 to get over 100 points in a league season.

Our final score came from a huge kick from Charlie Chitty. The fly half cleared his lines and as the Battersea full back and wing dithered on the loose ball, Harry Reynolds swooped in to dot down under the posts untouched and complete the turnaround. Reynolds carried on his form from the Tee to take T's lead to 28-19. There was still time for Battersea to secure their own 2 bonus points as they scored in the final play of the game to see Thurrock home 28-26 victors.

Thurrock will now look to go on a Cup run in the Papa Johns trophy before the rebuild starts for next season as Ts take their place in Counties 1 Essex