When you throw in our Under 15's Boys and our Under 12's girls into the mix with their wins, well it was nearly a perfect 10, our only teeny blemish being our valiant Raiders (Men's 2nd XV) coming back from 12-28 down to within spitting distance of Chinnor, before falling just short, going down 24-31 in the end. For the record, the Occies were awarded a walk-over in their fixture.

It is also incredible to report that there were 12 and 150 players playing for our Minis at Ealing on Sunday, and 9 Junior teams in action too! Extraordinary continued passion and growth from our young ones and their coaches and parents!

Saturday also saw the 15th Annual Vets Lunch take place, brilliantly organised as ever by Angus Graham. The lunch saw 150 old lags waxing lyrical about days gone by of their derring-do at Barnes RFC, expertly MC’d by that darling of the shopping channels, Mark Durden-Smith, who with great verbal dexterity, effortlessly skipped from double entendre to double entendre.

Most definitely another weekend of great fun and great rugby at Barnes RFC was notched up, thank you to all of you that help or support us in whatever way you do!

With the Six Nations kicking off next weekend, the next 1st XV games are on 10th February, with the men at home to Westcombe Park (who beat Dorking last weekend so are not to be underestimated) and the Women return to the fray on 11th February , away to Hampstead - enjoy your rest next weekend!

Barnes Men’s 1st XV 42 - 24 North Walsham1st XV - words by Rhino
An exciting and entertaining game saw Barnes emerge victorious in a ten try encounter against North Walsham. Relishing in their unstructured style, the visitors caused the home team a headache, and at one stage they trailed by only two points 21-19.

Barnes got off to a perfect start scoring immediately from the kick off through fly-half Tom Wilstead, who converted his own try. It was over 20 minutes later before North Walsham notched up their first score, fly half Harry Langridge running through a sleepy Barnes defence to make it all square at 7-7. It took Barnes until just before half time to score again, hooker Matt Humphreys crashing over and Wilstead converting to make it 14-7 at the break.
Mirroring the start of the game, Wilstead scored his second try immediately from the restart, and converted it too, and Barnes looked to be stretching away but two tries from Ross Magnus and Tawanda Kademwa in the 42nd and 49th minutes frustrated Barnes and kept North Walshan well and truly in the contest.

As we approached the last quarter, North Walsham saw yellow twice, and Barnes were awarded a penalty try for the first offence, and the floodgates slightly opened with Cam Ruddock and Ryan Seabright both scoring after sustained Barnes pressure, WIllstead converting both tries.

Leading 42-19, it looked like game over but North Walsham refused to lie down and Kademwa scored his second try of the match right at the death.

This win, combined with Bury and Dorking losing, sees Barnes bounce back into 2nd place in National League 2 East.

It is a mystery to me why North Walsham are bottom of the league without a win, their backs ran everything, from everywhere, and are a real handful, and their forwards competed through out the match. It is almost a certainty that they will get relegated but you never know, if they do go down, one thing is for sure, it won’t be long before they are back in this league.

This weekend the lads have a well-deserved rest and will no doubt be putting up their feet and soothing aching limbs whist watching the Six Nations kick off.

Blackheath Ladies 15-20 Barnes Women’s 1st XV - words by Captain Ruth Mottershead
This Sunday the Women’s 1st XV team travelled away to Blackheath. It was a glorious sunny day, and we were playing on a top quality pitch. The day felt good from the beginning, vibes were high and everyone was up for the game.

We knew Blackheath would bring it to us after our narrow win at home. For the first 15 minutes we were camped on the halfway line with the play going back and forth. Our defence was good and we used our exits well, but eventually they broke through to go 5-0 up.

Again we hammered at them along the halfway line, struggling to break through. Eventually the backs went through a gap and a wide pass out to Rachel saw her eventually tackled on the line. The forwards then took over, running our chaos play until Amanda scored on the edge. 5-5.

Everyone looked confident for the rest of the half, and it wasn’t long before Rachel found a hole and sprinted to the line from halfway. 5-12.

Blackheath came back at us hard for the rest of the half, but despite a held up try they couldn’t score and we went into half time.

For the majority of the second half Blackheath kept us trapped in our 22. Their subs made a big impact and pretty soon they smashed through our line to make it 10-12. We defended hard after this but still struggled to get out. Eventually a big clearing kick got us some territory, and we managed to collect. Quick hands out put Beans over in the corner. 10-17.
Blackheath came back to score to go to 15-17. We managed to collect the restart and the last 3 mins of game time was all ours. Eventually a penalty in final play for a high tackle was expertly taken by El, and the game ended 15-20 to us.

This was an impressive win against a very strong and experienced side.
The forward of the match was Carys, who got over every breakdown.
The back of the match was Beans, who looked confident in her position and was strong in defence as always.

And the players player was fullback Rachel, who was amazing under the high balls, lightning quick and made several try saving tackles.

Old Ruts 14-15 Barnes Women’s 2nd XV - words by Captain Rosie Price
This week saw the 2nd XV taking on Old Ruts away. It was a crucial game to keep us ahead of Hackney in the table, and we knew it was going to be a tough one.

It might have been the 11am kick off that saw us head onto the pitch and have a slightly lack lustre start, but an early score from Ruts meant that we had to push even harder to keep our heads up and get back into the game. A massive defensive shift from the team, and some line out interception, saw us slowly grow our share of possession, but our execution in the final passes saw us giving away that ball to the oppo through knock ons and forward passes.

We headed into half time with 14-0 down to Old Ruts.

After a stern talking to from Andy, we headed into the second half with a clear mission in mind, 3 tries. It was like a new team had come out, and everything started clicking into place.

We pushed hard to make the meters, and the forwards worked hard to turn over balls in the scrum and line out to maintain possession of the ball. We truly won the second half with a brace from Izzy Jackson, and one from Olivia putting us into the lead. With 15 long minutes left Barnes had to work hard to maintain their one point lead.

It was a game which really tested the teams patience and skills. After a few months of high scoring wins, this really was a change and pushed us to the brink. We have made a pact to never be a second half team again after nearly causing Andy to spontaneously combust!
The players player of the match was Edy, who pushed through the hard moments and brought the team with her. A real motivator on the field.

The forward of the match was Em for her incredible try saving tackle in the last 2 mins of the game!

And the back of the match was Marianna, for her impressive defence on the wing and some smart attack.

Barnes Girls Under 12’s - 9 Tries - 3 Tries Dorking Girls Under 12’s - words by Senior Coach Boris Pomroy
Barnes Girls Under 12’s Girls continued their winning ways against Dorking in the Surrey Cup last weekend. Barnes started with their trademark intensity in defence, forcing Dorking backwards before turning them over and securing the first score after two minutes. Despite spirited work at the breakdown by Dorking, Barnes scored four more times before the end of the first quarter, including two brilliant individual tries by Maria, to make the score 5-0.

With a bumper match day squad of 21 - and only twelve allowed on the pitch at any one time - we rang the changes for the second quarter, giving opportunities to a number of our newest players. Credit to Dorking, who showed real character to come back with a few tries of their own, but just after half-time we hit the ‘6-try rule’ mark, officially winning the game 9-3.

In the spirit of rugby, we continued to the final whistle, trying out new positions and combinations to prepare ourselves for what will be tougher matches ahead. We were particularly proud of our newer players, some of who have only been playing for a few weeks, who showed real courage in getting involved.

A few weeks break from fixtures now, before travelling to Cobham on 3rd March for Round 3.

Barnes Under 15’s 19-0 Richmond Under 15’s - words by Senior Coach Paul Spencer

Barnes Under 15’s took on local rivals Richmond in the second round of the Quins Cup.
The game kicked off with Richmond camping in the Barnes 22. Impressively, the Barnes defence held firm. Barnes then scored two tries though our No: 8 and fly-half, going into half time 12-0 to the good.

The second half was a tense affair, with Barnes adding the only try, making the final score 19-0 to the home side, an excellent win!

Barnes Raiders (Men’s 2nd XV) 24-31 Chinnor Falcons – words by Coach Dom Palacio
After a frozen weekend the week before and being unable to play Dorking 2nd XV as a result, the Raiders were at home versus National One side Chinnor Falcons. The Raiders were looking for their first win of 2024.

The selected team saw several players who had been playing for our 1st XV in the last few fixtures join the squad as well as others who hadn’t been available to play for several weeks. The wider men's squad was still suffering from a lack of fit and available forwards so centres- Josh Jarvis and Joe Henry started in the back row, leaving the team with only one forward on the bench.

Despite a positive warm-up, the men from Oxfordshire started the brightest. The Raiders were initially playing Rugby in the wrong part of the field for the first 20/30 minutes, in their own half and 22, inviting the Falcons to leap on some of the Raider's early unforced errors. The Falcons would score three times in the first quarter of the game, making the rest of the afternoon an uphill struggle.

The Raiders rallied and scored two tries of their own, one scored with a superb line break by wing Osborne and another off the back of a maul right at the end of the half by hooker McCarthy, the halftime score was 12-21.

In the second half, the Falcons scored their 4th try early on, but the Raiders were starting to click and scored their third try with just over 20 minutes to play. With plenty of field position the Raider's attack was snubbed out by the Falcon's defense. A mistake in front of the home team's posts saw a penalty awarded to the visitors, which they chose to kick for 3 points.

With time against them, the Raiders struggled to score the 2 required converted tries to take the win. However, the last score of the day did go to thrnes men, at the last play of the afternoon. Final score - Raiders 22 - Falcons 31

The man-of-the-match was fly half Kyle Beatie, who controlled the comeback with a cool head!