The benefit of selecting your group phase opponents as festival host is never lost on me. It betrays two things, fear and desperation. Fear of teams you feel are stronger than you and desperation that you won't 'win' your own tourney.

So imagine our surprise to find the Beckenham Bears drawn against Sevenoaks, Elthamians and Bromley, while the Bulls got Colfes, Dartfordians and Sidcup.

We played most of them at Sidcup and won the Shield and Vase finals. Throw in a home training session and the lads did it again and repeated the Sidcup results. The fact of the matter is that we have had a great season, the lads have gelled as a team, show great heart and commitment when they cross the white line and back that up with solid performances in recent weeks.

Teams we have traditionally struggled against are no longer feared. Wins get bigger and losses narrower. We won a couple, lost one and ended up in the shield final against Beccehamians who were properly put to the sword, 2 tries to nil. The Bears won the Vase though I haven't a record of how they did that.

We now know what winning feels like and the lads like it!

Roll on Round 1 of the Kent Cup next week at Park House.