Streatham-Croydon moved into the second round of the RFU Junior Vase with a tense 20-13 win over rivals Merton at Frant Road on Saturday, writes Owen Jones.

Despite scoring four tries to one, the result remained in doubt until the final whistle as a well-organised Merton side frustrated their hosts and threatened a breakaway try right to the end.

However, Streatham’s dominance of the scrum meant their opponents never had a platform from which to launch many good attacks, and Streatham spent long periods camped on the Merton line without being able to find the score to put them out of reach.

After falling behind to an early penalty, captain Gavin Calloo used his speed and strength to score Streatham’s first try wide on the left, Ciprian Ideobut missing the first of a series of difficult kicks to leave Streatham 5-3 ahead.

With some quality ball coming from Simon Hampton and Tom Gilfeather in the lineouts, it was Hampton who charged over for Streatham’s second try, again unconverted to leave Streatham 10-3 up.

This was the two sides’ second meeting already this season and it was clear that Merton knew who Streatham’s danger man was on the wing.

With five tries to his name in last week’s thumping win over Woking, Aaron Brown was never quite able to escape the not altogether legal attention of his markers, one particularly high tackle scything him down in full flight.

Basic handling errors from both forwards and backs combined to ruin several promising moves, and Merton soon made them pay with a well-worked try of their own, this time converted to make it 10-10.

Frustration began to creep into Streatham’s game and the referee awarded several penalties to Merton, whose fly-half was on fine form, landing a kick from 40 yards just before half-time to give Merton the lead for the first time as the sides went into the break.

Streatham coach Bob Dean brought Gareth Ford-Hunt on to replace Chris McCarthy for the second-half and it was another Dean substitution, Marian Menea, who scored Streatham’s third try, this time wide on the left, to put Streatham back in the lead at 15-13.

With Streatham continuing to boss the scrums, it was the experienced Gareth Ford-Hunt who sped over for the fourth try after another strong scrummage.

Streatham then camped on the Merton line for the final 10 minutes, desperate to put the game to bed with a pushover try that they would have more than deserved.

With the clock ticking down Streatham elected to go for goal from the 10 metre line, Menea’s effort falling just short.

Merton could not break out of their own half to clinch a winning score and man of the match prop Damion Darlington can now dream of Twickenham as Streatham are in the hat for the second round.

Streatham face their toughest league game of the season so far on Saturday when they travel to Surrey 4 leaders and fellow unbeaten side Haslemere, kick-off 3pm.