Portsmouth RFC deliver perfect result as club come together to remember 'much-loved' former captain Steve Todd with Old Georgians victory

Prior to Portsmouth' s emphatic 33-17 London 3 South West triumph over Old Georgians on Saturday, the club staged a memorial lunch to honour Todd, who sadly passed away last summer aged 58.

Todd was a well-known and likeable Portsmouth rugby community figure and had captained the club to London Division 1 level in the mid-90s.

Fittingly, current Portsmouth head coach Gareth Richards felt his side delivered their 'best 40 minutes of the season' racing into a 21-0 advantage to mark the day of memory.

And Richards says this Rugby Camp occasion provided the best time to produce with Todd at the forefront of the minds of everyone in attendance - added to the fact first-team captain Greg Hoolihan (bicep) and club skipper Adam Parks-Dare (double leg fracture) had suffered serious injuries in the weeks previous.

The Portsmouth head coach said: ‘I think we had a number of contributing factors into the weekend having lost our first-team captain (Greg Hoolihan) two Saturdays ago to a bicep injury, we obviously had a nasty incident with Adam (Parks-Dare) last week with his ankle then Steve (Todd) who was a much-loved and important member of the Portsmouth rugby community, so there were lots of things feeding into the boys being motivated for the day.

‘It was a really pleasing afternoon. There was a really good crowd up there with the lunch as well, there was a memorial lunch (for former club captain Steve Todd) and that fed nicely into the game, it was a thrilling victory, really, Saturday.’

Portsmouth came flying out of the traps with tries from Elliott Worrall (two) and Luke Peters capping a dominating opening period as they held a convincing 21-0 advantage at the break.

Replacement Lewnikali Mitieli Ravudolo ran in a bonus-point fourth try for the hosts as they opened up a 28-0 lead.

Peters then got his second try after Old Georgians had pulled back a consolation score as Portsmouth capped a day of remembering a much-loved former club member with victory.

Richards added: ‘I thought we were absolutely outstanding in the first-half, we played some great rugby, the forward pack really fronted up. A number of them really carried hard and got us on the front-foot.

‘Our backline probably clicked better then it has done all season, with the few chances we created we took, we were clinical. It was probably the best 40 minutes that I’ve seen us play this season so far.’