Blackheath delight as they go back up
BLACKHEATH bounced back up to National 1 last weekend with a resounding victory over Westcliff and free scoring winger Jake Lloyd says it’s great for the club ‘to be back where they belong’.
The pre-season title favourites haven’t disappointed this term winning 21 of their 23 matches coming into this weekend and their 94-17 victory over Westcliff was deemed as the ‘icing on the cake’.
Lloyd, right, 25, chipped in with four tries
to take his personal tally to 20 and was delighted at the full-time whistle.
“We’ve been through a bit of a low period being relegated, so it was nice to put things right and get back to where we should be,” Lloyd told The Rugby Paper. “It’s been a good year, very successful and enjoyable.
“Westcliff have had a bit of a tough year. We didn’t take them for granted but we knew that we’d win the game. It was more the other games, the Bury St Edmunds match in particular was one of the ones we targeted and thought if we get over the line against them then we’re pretty
much there.” Blackheath haven’t had it all their own way this year having been beaten by Tonbridge Juddians and Old Albanians earlier in the season. Lloyd said: “The two games that we lost we felt we didn’t really do ourselves justice. We said the whole way along that the only people that could beat us were ourselves. We always had the confidence that we were the best team in the league but it’s the question of doing it every week which isn’t easy over the course of a season especially as other teams are chomping at the bit to get a piece of Blackheath. Every team seems to play their best when they play against us.”
The winger, who has made over 150 appearances for the London club, has noticed a gulf in class between the third and fourth tier.
He said: “In National One there are no easy games in the league, if you’re slightly off it you’ll lose. We had periods of games where we were off it for 20 minutes or so this year, but we managed to wrestle it back and score a few tries and make the scoreline perhaps better than it should have been.”