Rugby: Birthday-boy Doe the toast of Warlingham

Warlingham scrum-half Ollie Doe got the key to the door with his 21st birthday last Saturday, and he proceeded to open up the opposition, Sandown & Shanklin, in a victory at Hamsey Green that puts the Croydon club back on track in London South West Division four.

Warlingham's youngsters took the lead after just two minutes when Mark Kozminski duly slotted a penalty home.

From continued pressure, Jon Smith, Warlingham's number eight, broke quickly and scythed through the cover to score under the posts. Kozminski converted.

When Warlingham put some phases together they always looked dangerous and, from some good interplay, centre Street scored an unconverted try.

The visitors' only response in the first-half was a solitary penalty after Warlingham's flanker Andy Cox was yellow carded and the home side thus reduced to 14 men.

Sandown were lucky not to have one of their players disciplined for a forearm smash in a tackle.

Smith again had a long raking run deep into opposition territory but was cruelly held before reaching the whitewash.

After the break Sandown knuckled down and took the game to Warlingham, whose defence was breached with a well-taken try by the Sandown full-back after a number of five-metre scrums.

Kozminski then added a further three points from a penalty, the last score he will contribute as he now has a serious operation on his knee, putting the reliable kicker out of action for the rest of the season.

Stout tackling from Street and Ky Oliviera and penetrating runs from Ben Wiseman, Dave Stamp and Child gave Warlingham the ascendancy and a precise pass from Street to Neil Robson and on to Doe gave the birthday-boy the final score of the afternoon for the home side, who moved to fourth place in their league table.

On Saturday, Warlingham travel to Old Amplefordians.