Despite a stirring second-half fightback, Alton slip to their third defeat after a disastrous opening half-hour.

Alton nearly revived Lazarus but could not quite fashion a miracle as they slipped to their third London 3 defeat, this time at the hands of an impressive Teddington outfit at Anstey Park.

Spectacularly outplayed in the opening half-hour in which Antlers ran in four tries with alarming ease, Alton left themselves far too much to do after the interval. But they worked their socks off and had they shown a little more composure, Lazarus might well have shared their post-match celebrations.

Another defeat, albeit against one of the league's promotion favourites, but there were plenty of positives for Alton.

They may occasionally have creaked at the scrum, but the forwards grew in stature as the game progressed and they finished on top.

Debutant Elliott Watkins looked the business and pulled the strings nicely at scrum-half, flanker Winston Carter was a human dynamo and Gareth Richards was quite outstanding at centre. That they 'won' the second half 10-3 is another reason for optimism.
 
It was a horrible opening period for Alton and they trailed 25-3 after just 34 minutes.

Three of the visitors' four tries came about from Alton defensive gaffes: flaccid first-up tackling, not to mention some wretched kicking from hand, allowed the Antlers to run riot.

But to ascribe the Antlers' win to Alton's shortcomings would do them a gross disservice. They were, for most part, much the better side.

They were a well-organised unit blessed with a lightning quick and clever back three, a half-back pairing full of rugby intuition and deft touches, and a powerful scrummage that often troubled Alton.

Giant number eight Fergus Farrell, in particular, was a force of nature. His ball-carrying, work-rate and sheer physicality caused Alton no end of problems.

At times the visitors' rugby in the opening half was scintillating - it was not hard to see why they had won all of their last 33 games, one of which was the Junior Vase at Twickenham.

Always keen to keep ball in hand, they were too quick, too strong and too clever for Alton's young guns in the opening period.

Ironically, it was Alton who opened the scoring when they won a penalty after just 34 seconds, Steve Ott slotting a straightforward penalty.

However, his exit soon afterwards to a hamstring injury was a bitter blow to Alton and in hindsight may have played some part in how the game panned out.

Farrell notched the opening try after five minutes, barging over from five yards after a line-out move that out-witted Alton's back-row.

Twelve minutes later Antlers added their second, working a number of phases before sending the ball right and creating an overlap for right wing Mark Nitsch to stroll over.

Jonathan Harte then scampered over following impressive full-back Tor Dahl-Nielson's break from a miscued clearance kick, though there was a suspicion of a knock-on in the build-up.

Nitsch's second try will give Alton's coaches nightmares. Lightning quick as he was, Nitsch gathered another poor Alton defensive clearance and simply breezed through some woeful tackling to sprint over in the right-hand corner.

Second-row kicker Glenn Boyling's conversion and 34th-minute penalty were answered by a Christo Arundel penalty and it was 25-6 at the break. Woe unto Alton.

But after the dodgiest of first halves, Alton began to find themselves and edged the second half.

Counter-rucking effectively and winning increasingly amounts of turn-over ball, they began to look their old selves.

They were aided to some degree as Antlers, so dangerous with ball in hand in the opening period, inexplicably turned to a rather wayward kicking game and made a number of handling errors.

Alton gave themselves hope when a trademark catch-and-drive led to Winston Carter touching down but Boyling's penalty kept Teddington at bay at 28-11 with a quarter of the match remaining.

Yet the home side were not done and ran in their second try eleven minutes from time. It was a well-crafted effort. A quick tap and Matt O'Connor's break took play into the visitors' 22 and when the ball went wide, Richards' inside pass sent Arundel over.

Suddenly, Alton had a sniff and camped themselves inside the Antlers' 22 for the last ten minutes. But they could not fashion a score - a knock-on here, a wrong option there, plus some determined Antlers' defence denied them the score that might have set up a grandstand finish.

Alton: Forsyth; Hemmens, Richards, Ott (Gill, 12), O'Connor; Arundel, Watkins; Happel (Ovens, 58), Parratt, Gay (c); Oliphant, Osborne; Sorby, Carter, Ford.
Tries: Carter (53), Arundel (69);
Penalties: Ott (1), Arundel (40, ).  


Teddington: Dahl-Nielson; Nitsch, Kirchner, Holdsworth, Harte; Manley (Barton, 55), White; Shaw, Sweeney (Collett, 40), Whyte; Boyling, Ewins, Lynch, Ferguson, Farrell (Stone, 64).
Tries: Farrell (5), Nitsch (17, 26), Harte (21);
Conversion: Boyling;
Penalties: Boyling (34, 56).

Referee: Gary Self.