As often is the case, last weekend was a curates egg of highs and lows for the adult teams at Barnes Rugby Club, the Men’s 1st XV blowing away Bury in a 4-try-10-minutes first half blitz, winning more comfortably than the 47-34 result implies, the truth is that having scored 7 tries and getting to a 40-15 lead with 25 minutes to go, the game was effectively over and we coasting for the rest of the game,

We 100% will not be able to do that this weekend as we travel away to Henley, give them as much rope as we gave Bury and we will end up in a right old pickle! They will be smarting after their 39-27 loss to Dorking last week, and of course will want to do the double on us having beaten us at Barn Elms 22-27 in late November. Time for our lads to stand up and be counted, I have no doubt we will patch up our wounded and head to battle with a steely determination to win!

Friday night saw our old boys, the Originals won in a tough encounter against Weybridge Vandals 22-17 and are out again this Friday night with a game against Cobham followed by their traditional curry after this fixture.

The Men’s 2nd XV took on a powerful Rams 2nd XV, with so many injuries across the whole 1st XV squad the cupboard is very bare right now, no front row coverage on the bench and two back playing in the back row, they fought to a man, going down 28-15 - the final fixture of the weekend saw our Women’s 1st XV go down 47-7 to Streatham and Croydon, tough old league the Championship, with no easy fixtures. The Women did have a brilliant fund-raising cake sale on Saturday, raising £500 towards there day playing at Twickenham on 13th March - more of that below!

Last but not least, please do read carefully the piece on abuse aimed at refs and touch judges from the tough lines by coaches, supporters and parents, The RFU and Surrey Rugby are quite right to stamp this out, we don’t want to discourage refs and touch judges from taking part (and yes I know they are now called ARs!) - our ex-President, Dave Doonan, is now President of Surrey Rugby and he has specifically asked us to set a high bar for others to follow here, as we do with so many other initiatives.

That’s it from me, have a brilliant weekend - see you on the other side!

Rhino x

Here are the fixtures for this weekend again:

Friday 22nd March Fixture

• Cobham Vets vs Barnes Originals - 7.45pm KO

Saturday 23rd March Fixtures

• Henley Hawks vs Barnes Men’s 1st XV - 3pm KO

• Occies vs Farnham 3rd XV - 2.30pm KO

Cake everywhere!

Our women players put on a fab cake sale last weekend as part of their 13th April fund raising and collected £500 towards their £10,000 target!

Cake was the word on everyone's lips on Saturday as our women players pushed on in their quest to raise £10,000 for the Injured Players Foundation, as part of the charity tournament they are playing the hallowed turf of Twickenham on 13th April.

The £500 they raised through their home baking endeavours pushed the total funds raised so far to over £8000.

Not far to go now, and I know we can get there if we all dig deep over the next couple of weeks, every single penny will count!

Let's help them smash that £10k target, and get a big Barnow crowd down at Twickenham on the 13th April to cheer our women on!

You can support this incredible cause by donating here now direct to this page: https://www.barnowcares.com/women or via the
www.BarnowCares.com website!

Thank you in anticipation!

Barnes RFC 47 - 34 Bury St Edmunds - words by Rhino

What started as a lovely sunny day in Barnes turned into a gloomy afternoon as Barnes entertained Bury St Edmunds at Barn Elms.

Barnes were fast out of the blocks and scored inside the first five minutes of the kick off, a line out catch and drive from Len Ashcroft Leigh setting up the driving maul from which James Gallagher dotted down, the conversion missed, Barnes led 5-0. Bury then woke up and scored under the posts through Harry Simpson from the restart, Ben Penfold slotted the extras and after 8 minutes Bury led 5-7. Penfold further extended their lead with a penalty to extend their lead to 5-10 after 15 minutes.

Barnes then blew away Bury in 10 minutes of sublime rugby, scoring four converted tries.

Firstly, Bury were penalised on 21 minutes for jumping early in the line out, which saw the mercurial Barnes Captain Josh Davies chip through deliciously, regather his own kick, and score an absolute beauty. Wilstead converted.

The flood gates then opened for Barnes, who scored three further tries in the next 8 minutes. Jacques Birch sailed down the wing to score followed almost immediately by Josh Davies’s second try and finally Jordan Souter running half the length of the pitch, score under the posts. With Wilstead converting all three tries, Barnes now led 33-10 after 31 minutes. Bury did score a try themselves through Finley McCartney, but the home team went into half time much the happier team, 33-15 to the good.

Barnes started the second half as they started the first half, at pace, and with laser-focus. James Gallagher romped through the midfield, popping the ball to Len Ashcroft-Leigh who offloaded to skipper Davies to complete his hattrick with only one minute gone of the second period. With Wilstead converting again, Barnes hit 40 points, but Bury came straight back to score themselves, full back Kodie Drury-Hawkins scoring and Penfold adding the extras to reduce the deficit to 40-22.

Barnes seem to be able to score at will out wide at this stage, Paul Webb scorching down the wing for Barnes’s seventh try after 53 minutes, Wilstead on target yet again and Barnes now led 47-22.

The rest of the game was a scrappy arm wrestle, with both sides not surprisingly tiring after the pace of the game to that point. Barnes added no more points, but the visitors added two tries, one from prop Patrick Robinson and Harry Simpson getting his second try of the match. With Penfold successful with one conversion, the final score was 47-34. It was overall a pulsating and open game of rugby, really well refereed by Holly Wood, a rip-roaring contest.

Streatham and Croydon Women’s 1st XV 47-7 Barnes Women’s 1st XV - words by Vice Captain Morven Logan.

Last Sunday our Women’s 1st XV played Streatham and Croydon (S&C) away.

S&C sit 2nd in the league and came out strong, evidently bolstered by their win against Ironsides who, until last week, were undefeated in Champ 2. Despite this, Barnes went into the match optimistic. We’ve played some brilliant rugby recently, including blistering defence against Ironsides and piercing attack against Hackney!

An early scrum after our kick-off allowed Barnes forwards to show that they could stand up against the opposition pack, who had a c. 90kg advantage. However, after a few phases our discipline let us down and S&C managed to get the first points on the board.

After the next restart Barnes managed to regain possession and following some hard carries and patience from the forwards, the ball went out to the backs, with Tati going over the line. Converted by Izzy, who was making her first start with 1s.

The remainder of the first half, saw Barnes’ discipline improve and some brilliant defence from Amanda and Mairead. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep the well drilled S&C at bay and they scored a few more times.

Coming into the second half, we knew we had to work on our line speed- as soon as we got up in S&C’s faces, we were a real threat. Some cracking runs by Beans, Izzy and Rachel saw us making good ground. Unfortunately, handling let us down and we struggled to capitalise.

Throughout a tough game our forwards were dominant in the scrums and lineouts – I’d be doing the pack a disservice not highlighting that I believe we had a 100% success rate in both! Very impressive, particularly Ched’s who caused the opposition all sorts of trouble by turning over the scrum again and again.
Big shout out to Fiona and Millie who came on in the final twenty minutes and made a noticeable impact. Fiona immediately ran a hard line and ended up a metre or so from the try line, whilst Millie came in and maintained control at 9. Despite the score, we kept our heads up and spent a commendable final 15 minutes camped in S&C’s 22.

Forward of the match went to Cheds for her turning over of the opposition scrums.

Back of the match went to Rachel for her safe hands under many high balls and impressive runs.
Players player goes to Izzy who’s come up from the 2s to make a real impact at 10.

Shout out to Ruth who stepped in as Head Coach, giving Chris and Andy a run for their money.

Defence and discipline will be our main work-ons whilst we prepare for our penultimate match of the season against Wimbledon at home on 7th April.

Please come down and support!

Weybridge Vandals 17-22 Barnes Originals - words by that Peter Pan of rugby – skipper Richard Mayson

Churchill famously noted that "the Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing only after they have tried everything else".

Well, to paraphrase Churchill, the Originals can be trusted to win a game they should win, only once we have tried everything else.

If Mr Bean did Vets rugby games, this would qualify.

In the past I have opined on what attractive, open and tantalising rugby we play. In the interest of being even handed, this game was the inverse, and there is no way to claim otherwise.

Error-strewn to an almost comical level (both teams), this fixture may have set a record for the number of scrums completed (read: knock-ons). The poor front fives of each team must have woken up on Saturday morning stiff as a plank ("but I thought you liked scrummaging, guys?")

In praise of our opponents, Vandals, they were masterful at disrupting anything we didn't disrupt for ourselves - it was like trying to play chess against a pigeon. The game ebbed and flowed although the score always felt like it was going to just favour us.

These games come along once in a while. Chapeau to the pack, a chapeau to the team for getting it done!

Rams 28 - 15 Barnes Raiders (Men’s 2nd XV) - words by Coach Dom Palacio
The Raiders were on the road again this week, with another tough game in prospect verses high flying National One side, Reading Rams. Their 2nd XV, The Titans, are also in a good run of form.
The trend of the last few weekends with unavailable forwards to select from, meant another game with no bench cover for the team, and again a centre having to play in the back row, Josh Jarvis & Gyles Bromley-Martin shared this responsibility admirably!
The Titans started strongly and with a notable weight advantage in their scrum, gave them an obvious dominance with their set peace. Raiders clung on most of the afternoon at scrum time, with no front row replacements available, it was going to be a tough battle for The Raiders tight five.
After several minutes of Titans dominance, the men from Barnes took the first points of the game with winger Conan Osborne scoring a well worked try.
The Titans came into the Raiders half, time and time again, but we defended the continual waves of attack superbly, but the penalty count was starting to rise!
However, Raiders took 3 more points form a penalty in front of the posts on 18 minutes.
Titans finally broke the Raiders line and went over for their first try at 25 minutes. 7-10
The Titans buoyed by a dominant set piece scrummed and mauled their way further and further into the Raiders half, for the remainder of the first half. A team yellow card saw the Raiders go down to 14 just before the break and somehow, we managed to keep the score to 7-10!
The second half started as the first half ended, Raiders defending valiantly, and we would score one more try. However, the home team’s dominance up front gave them the win.
Final score Rams Titans 28 – Barnes Raiders 15
Man of the match was skipper George Gadsby, making multiple tackles on players almost twice his size!
with Barnes taking the spoils and five big points.