Magnanimous Harrodians

I have been reading Marcus Aurelius ‘Meditations’ and despite a plethora of poignant quotes even he could not find the words to describe our performance on Saturday!

But setting the scene first........
As at Thursday we seemed to have a full side and even the possibility of a two subs, though one of those was going to be St Bernard and his brick like calf muscles! We also had Cris Pinni confirmed, so I took it upon myself to ensure he had a map, compass, homing pigeon and flares for his quest of getting from Chiswick to Esher! And..., the side was due to take on its first new recruit, Jonathan Stadlan, who had not climbed through the ranks of playing at the Club, but instead is an enthusiastic Dad to an equally enthusiastic Barnes Mini player! (Oh and I know there are more Mini’s Dads out there who still have boots hidden away at the back of the cupboard....Mr Glanville!!!!)

Friday came and with all confirmed, the M25 open, and Marek having seen enough customers, there were no potential snags on the horizon, even Gundog being flog marched by the Royal Marines at Twickenham was going perfectly! Heavy overnight rain followed by glorious morning sunshine made for a perfect Match day.

With no other home fixtures at Esher, we perhaps made our first mistake by not taking up the offer to play on the wider main pitch and for the style of game which ensued we may well have used that to our advantage.

Esher fielded a strong side and man for man they were much bigger than us which they used to good effect early on. They were able to put a number of options together in the lineout which led to the usual rolling maul and it seemed for long periods we just couldn’t get our hands on the ball. Likewise at scrum time we struggled for parity and yours truly had his work cut out against a slightly feisty Welsh Loose head who was also the Esher skipper!

Within a short space of time we found ourselves frustrated, rattled and 17 – 0 down.

Calm words under the sticks ensued and we knew that we had to get much quicker ball and open up Esher’s backs and to do so with urgency. We returned to take a restart and within a matter of minutes some excellent interplay from the backs brought us back to 17 – 12. Spirits were immediately lifted and what briefly looked like a formidable Esher started to look like a beatable side.

Esher replied with force and worked us hard in the scrum with one leading to a push over try. That always hurts and forced us to dig deeper and find a different way to break them down. That answer lay at ruck time.......

When Esher had ball in hand in open play, many of their backs were quickly closed down by outstanding Barnes defence, which would often find their player isolated, on occasions we turned over ball and the backs were able to put Esher under pressure. On other occasions the ruck was more of a flash point and we for a period we felt we were playing against 16 and conceded too many penalties.
These phases of play antagonised us and the guys responded well to the request that we channel that aggression into the rucks and step up to the mark in the scrum.

We did just that and the score margin shifted to 22 – 19.
Esher were now rattled and further frustrated that they had not closed the game down earlier. Scrums started to improve and some better ball got out to the backs and this Barnes Vets side started to play with a belief and passion that a win was insight and it felt ‘rucking’ great! That passion boiled over on occasions and my feisty opposition Loose head was keen to land one of his punches – had he hit me any harder he may have got a ten minute rest, which could have gone in our favour, as it was the referee seemed content on a more relaxed approach to the game.

The minutes raced past and the score line again changed to 29 – 24!

We throw everything at Esher and in the closing minutes had two or three scrums within ten metres of their line and for the first time we seemed to have the upper hand, but time was against us and we couldn’t capitalise quickly enough.

Fifteen good players and mates stepped on to that pitch at 3pm and a Magnanimous Team came away with heads held very high. We have learnt early on in the season that we must stamp our mark on the game in the first twenty minutes and with intensity.
Everybody played exceptionally well, though I must give special mention to Morgs, Jerry and our new boy Jonathan who also sneaked over for a try! Also thank you to Jeff Smith and your side who gave us a great game and your hospitality afterwards was superb, if we can sneak in another ‘friendly’ later in the season we will be sure to welcome you to Barnes!

Lastly, it was great to see welcome support from TT, Northy, Rob Orr and Miles......many many thanks!

The Team was:
1 Jerry Gillespie
2 Marty Sutherland
3 Rich Fenech
4 Brucie
5 Duncan MacIver
6 Nick Bellis
7 Gundog
8 Jonny Spears

9 Splints
10 Marek
11 Jonathan Stadlen
12 Nick Morgans
13 Jose
14 Cris Pinni
15 Dizzy

16 Tom
17 Si Curran

And St Bernard will update the site with the try scorers.........
Next week we are at last at home to Camberley Vets for a league fixture.
Skips