First Friendly of the Fifteens Season

It wasn’t the best start to the day for our pre-season friendly against Farnham, as an unfortunate spate of illness meant Barnes Women turned up with no subs and no coach. However, we didn’t let a little thing like that worry us and spirits were high in the changing rooms.

The team were led out by 2s captain Ashley Brandon, with a slightly unexpected line up including four forwards in the back line. Farnham’s team seemed to include about 100 players in what looked like a well oiled machine, and it is fair to say Barnes were there for a good time but not expecting a win.

We soon surprised ourselves. After some excellent defensive work on the right wing by Hollie Bonner (good use of the 16th man), our forwards took the opportunity to show Farnham what they could do, with several big crashing runs up the middle. The ball then moved out to the backs and Taz Bogue made the first of several auditions to be moved to the wing, with a big looping run around Farnham's defence to score under the posts.

Farnham quickly responded with a try of their own out on the wing. Some really physical play followed this with huge hits from both sides, but once again Barnes came out on top with another try for Taz. The referee was heard to comment that she was ‘slightly faster’ than him - an understatement!

A strong Farnham line out led to Barnes taking their eye off the defence, leading to a fantastic run from the Farnham prop, scoring under the posts. The game was neck and neck. Morven Logan decided to take matters into her own hands and barged off up the pitch, but unfortunately was held up under the posts.

Some great Barnes attack saw Farnham pinned on their own try line. Helpfully, one of their players pointed out loudly that no one was defending the blind side, and Charlotte Edwards took this advice seriously and scored round the side of the ruck. We went into half time with a one try lead.

Half time saw the Barnes players eating sweets on the floor, while Farnham endured what looked like a very serious team talk.

The second half started well and within a few minutes Taz had run straight through Farnham’s defence to get herself a hat trick. A spate of line outs and scrums allowed our forwards to show what we can do in the set piece, with Liberty Conlan moved from wing to 8 and acting as jumper for the second half. A strong scrum in the middle of the pitch allowed the back line to execute a classic DSP, and great hands from Melisa Vilca to Hollie created another try on the wing.

It looked like Farnham’s subs might be giving them the edge for a while as they then scored twice in quick succession, and an unfortunate boot to the eye on Annie Nikaj meant Barnes went a player down. However, some great defensive work followed this, and after yet another great scrum Barnes lengthened their lead with a score from Ruth.

A second try from Ruth up the right wing with five minutes to go put Barnes far enough ahead we could relax. Farnham then had a yellow card against their 9 for a too exuberant hand off against Ruth. Taz then booted the penalty kick straight at a baby in the crowd - possibly for pay back, we aren’t sure.

Shout out to Liberty Conlan for her first game for Barnes and in a new position, she put in a huge shift and did some great work at the break down.

Zoe Hawkins had a fantastic game back after a long break, and we are excited to see her play more this season.

Next fixture will be a friendly away at Wimbledon RFC, where we will be looking to retain our bragging rights after our last meeting ended in a decent win from us as the underdogs. This will be on Wednesday 15th September, 7pm kick off. Please come along and support us.