Barnes Outriders First Foray into the London Premiership. On Saturday it was the first ever match for the brand-new Barnes Outriders, the new Barnow Men’s 3rd XV squad.
The Outriders is a very important part of the “bridge” that all of us have all been building from Youth to Senior rugby at Barnes RFC. The core is made up of the former Barnow Youth players who are now too old to play for our Cup Winning U22’s (e.g. Jake, Oscar, Jack etc). They are joined by as many of the U22’s that are available on a week-by-week basis (i.e. those living in the local areas and those who fancy popping back from Uni during the season to play the odd game on a Saturday). They will be supplemented by new recruits (especially mates of players in this group) as well as players from the wider Barnes Men’s squads who need match time.

To give prominence to the importance of our new 3rd XV squad, we decided to give them their own name, and we followed the same pattern as the other two squads that have names: the Originals (the Vets) and the Occies (the occasional, non-training team). We decided to call this squad “The Outriders”. It’s a special name as it implies a number of relevant key qualities: vanguard, leadership, protection, support, speed, agility, initiative and daring! Hope you all like it.

Turning to our first match of the season, it certainly was a daring match that needed all of that speed, agility and initiative. The Outriders have been entered into the London Premiership with strong teams from both the local area and slightly further away, including Battersea Ironsides, Richmond, Belsize Park, Horsham, Worthing etc. Our first match was against Ironsides 2s at their gaff. Ironsides looked like they were packed with experience and maturity; we, on the other hand, had oodles of wonderful, infectious youthful confidence, even from Barnow’s very own living legend Prop that is Frank the Tank – he fitted right in with the “kids” and showed them how to do it by playing the full 80 and gave our Front Row a real edge!! We’re hoping that Frank will now be in for the duration!

The Outriders started strong and with fleet of foot, battling constantly with everything that Ironsides could throw at us. After 30mins it was still 0-0 but that was only because for the first time ever Jack Seymour decided to be kind and pass (a woeful) ball at the 5m line rather than do his usual and continue running to the try line! But then after 30 mins of ferocious combat, the tries started to come: Henry Wallace (debut men’s match and FR Prop) scored first with a lovely pick up from the back of the ruck and stormed over – a nice conversion from Charlie Norton.

It was only minutes later that Ironsides came straight back at us and made it 7-7 and just before HT Ironsides managed to grab another try to make it 12-7.

In the second half The Outriders were strong and determined and came out with pace and strength with Jack Seymour (thankfully) reverting to type and properly showing the opposition how a skilful fullback can destroy a defensive line – 12-12 after 50 minutes!! It was at this point that I thought youth was going to outweigh maturity! How wrong I was … Unfortunately, we hadn’t accounted for injuries, late nights and losing our shape. Ironsides demonstrated that “experience” and “game sense” remain key attributes in Men’s rugby. They knew what to do and how to do it and boy did they put on a few tries in quick succession, scoring 5 tries to take it up to 45-12 with 10 mins to go. But then, out of nowhere, these youthful warriors, led by Jake Shaw as Skipper and Tom “Frank the Tank” McCarthur in the pack put on a finale to make this writer smile!! We put the pressure on through the middle of the park, brought all of their defence in tight and then ran a series of short, fast line breaks, bringing Freddie McCormack into the attack with his speed and strength to get through for a wonderful final try, converted by Oscar Wainman.
Final score Battersea Ironsides 45-19 Barnes Outriders.

Our thanks go to Battersea Ironsides 2nd XV for hosting, for showing us how it needs to be done and for giving us the opportunity to play our first match as The Outriders. Thanks also for their post-match hospitality. Despite the scoreline, this writer was really proud of these lads. We all decided not to focus on the score but to focus on the fact that they came together as unit, fought hard and played (for the most part) as a team. Onwards to this Saturday (13 Sept): The Outriders are at Home against Richmond Normans!! KO 1:30pm