South London Storm stayed top of the London League after 5 games with a solid victory against the Kentish Tigers who put up a strong performance and could easily have taken the game before and after the break. Storm started strongly in the first half with hard running by Colin Pritchard and Cameron Paul before hard hitting man of the match prop forward Chris Clarke went over in the 3rd minute. The try was unconverted but Storm still pushed forward, with Adrian Clarke and Jason More hitting close to the line before debutant hooker Steve O'Rourke darted over from dummy half to score close to the posts, leaving Rich Pitchfork with an easy conversion to take the score to 10-0 before 10 minutes had passed.

With Zac Freudenstein running the forwards from scrum-half he was finding holes for Steve Walters and Mike Wall before a skilled backs move gave Rob Mitchell some room to go over the line for his 4th try in 2 games and 8th of the season, converted again by Rich Pitchfork, taking the score to 16-0. Storm full back Cormac Lomasney went close as did Chris Clarke being held up over the line before Neil Ayres was put in down the right to score an unconverted try on 20 minutes. Kentish Tigers were hardly in the game at this point and on 28 minutes Chris Clark went over again to score an unconverted try.

The Tigers then fought back with an interception and a try from close range both converted to bring them back into the game with the half time score at 24-12.

Kentish Tigers came out after the break strongly with another converted under the posts making Storm nervous at the beginning of the half at 24-18. Storm continued to push hard to take the win and the half turned into an arm wrestle of a game with both teams fighting hard in both attack and defence. Storm went close with Lomasney just failing to take a kick in the corner and Chris Clark and Jason More both held up over the line. With 5 minutes to go Dave Walters managed to find a gap from dummy half to sneak over to score by the posts for Pitchfork to convert and take the score to 30-18.

Zac Freudenstein then put in a towering bomb to the corner which was taken by the Kentish Tigers winger to race the length of the pitch to score a converted try to set up a tight finish to the game at 30-24. A penalty by the posts for Storm gave Pitchfork the chance to take the score to 32-24 with a goal before in the last minute Pitchfork sent over a drop goal to take the game away from the tigers with a 9 point cushion to win 33-24.

"It was a great game to watch” commented coach Graeme Harker “Storm played well early on but slipped slightly before the end of the first half. The Tigers came back well and as the game went on they became stronger and stronger. I am pleased with the performance and the players will take a lot from this into the next game on the weekend.”