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After a weekend off Barnes 1st XV travel to Cornwall to play mighty Redruth

After a weekend off Barnes 1st XV travel to Cornwall to play mighty Redruth

Michael Whitfield20 Mar 2019 - 21:08
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National League 2 is back in action this week and Barnow will be looking to secure points in one of their toughest away games of the season.

With five games left Barnes we are ready to finish strongly
- Michael "Rhino" Whitfield

This weekend Barnes travel to Redruth, refreshed after their weekend off, although Friday’s Barnes RFC City Lunch was anything but restful for the 400 souls who attended. Now in its 10th year, this rugby lunch is fast becoming one of the hottest rugby tickets in town, it is not for the faint hearted mind, with an early kick-off at 11:15am, the first half lasting until 6pm and the second half finishing around midnight. It is fair to say all Barnes players and supporters performed magnificently in this contest!

Barnes 1st XV 28 Worthing Raiders 26
Before we look at the games that did take place last week, a quick look back at Barnes 1st XV’s last game, when we completed the home and away double against Worthing, winning the game 28-26 in the last play, a mirror image of the previous week against Taunton - except we won! This win moves us up three places to 10th, a marker of just how close this league is in the bottom half of it. In fact, 12 points separate 13th place and 7th place, and with just five games left for Barnow (against it Redruth, Birmingham and Wild Geese away and, in between, Clifton and Canterbury at home) it really is all to play for, and I am expecting a strong finish from the green and gold!

I said in my previous gut-wrenching report of the loss against Taunton, that the Worthing game at Barn Elms was massive, and it was, with the Captain Pugwashesque Frank-the-Tank-Macarthur, barging over after only three minutes to put Barnes 7-0 up, the metronomic Josh Hammett bagging the extras, only for Worthing to draw level only three minutes later. Just before the break Curtis Strange, the Raiders prolific scoring winger, grabbed his second score to make it 7-14 to the visitors, and that looked like the half time score. But Freddy Avis was having none of that, and he bundled over the line, giving Josh Hammett the opportunity to make it all square at the break, which of course he did with aplomb – the score at the break was 14-14.

The second half was much the same as the first. Barnes scored first, on 51 minutes, with Miles Wakeling going over the whitewash, and Josh Hammett adding the extras, giving Barnes a 21-14 lead. Surely we would kick on from here? Well, that would have been nice, but it was not to be. Worthing scored twice, Curtis Strange completing his hat-trick in the process. Worthing led 21-26 with ten minutes left and Barnes hearts’ were beating strongly at this point.
But then Barnes laid siege on the Worthing line, and huffed and puffed to try and blow the door down.

Once, twice, thrice we were denied, before the final winning try, from Ollie Smith, was scored, which was duly converted by the 100% boy Josh Hammett to again bisect the uprights for the extra points to make the final score 28-26 at the final whistle. A bloody good result!

I think that this was THE try, not just any old try, and when we look back at the end of the season this will be the pivotal moment which secured our place in National League 2 South for another season in the 85th minute of this pulsating game

Results last weekend:
Whilst most of us were watching the extraordinary conclusion of the Six Nations, or recovering on the sofa after the City Lunch, some people were still playing rugby for Barnes. The Ladies are clearly made of sterner stuff than the men and both the 1st and 2nd XV’s had excellent victories on Sunday, the 1st XV winning 0-17 away to Millwall Ladies, and the 2nd XV winning convincingly 12-52 against Marlow Ladies.
I am particularly proud to report that our Under 13’s Girls XV won their first ever festival match against Old Ruts at the Dorking Girls Festival. An excellent result in our newest, and fastest growing, section of the club.

And Finally….
As I said earlier, Barnes 1st XV travel away to play the tough Cornishmen from Redruth. We lost by a whisker at our place, 12-14, earlier in the season, a game we should quite frankly have closed out and won (like a couple of others too of course) so I know the boys will be bang up for this one. Redruth are flying high in 6th place, and we are in 10th place.

Here are all of the games on this weekend at Barnes RFC:

Saturday 23rd March
• Redruth - Barnes 1st XV - 3.00pm KO
• Barnes Harrodians Vets - Henley Vets - 2.30pm KO
Sunday 24th March
• Barnes Ladies 2nd xv - Bracknell Ladies - 2.30pm KO
Have a great weekend, play your rugby in the original spirit that we hold so dear at Barnes RFC.

Onwards and Upwards!

Michael “Rhino” Whitfield - Chairman Barnes RFC

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