Bracknell 4s 5-66 Henley 3s
By David Lewis
The Henley 3’s, the Vikings, were ejected from the league before the end of last season for playing insufficient games, predominantly due to injuries in teams above them, and they start this season in the bottom league.
The team has been reformed with a different emphasis and is focused on providing a development platform for new and younger players, augmented by the experience of some older players. To that end a long-time player and ex Hawks captain, as well as ex Barbarian, Mark Venner, has been brought in to support the team as Head Coach.
With one postponed game against Windsor 3’s last week, there may be a pattern of disrupted games throughout this season as opposing clubs may struggle to fulfil fixtures. However, for the new Vikings, there are, at least at this stage, some positive indicators of being able to field a strong team throughout.
Last Saturday’s match against Bracknell demonstrated immediately the positive, attacking attitude of the team. Within the first 5 minutes, Ben Venner breaking through the centre, both scored and converted his own try. This was followed promptly with a try by Toby Finch Noyes, a returner to rugby, with an excellent run on the wing, followed by another conversion by Venner.
Before even 10 minutes had passed, hooker Hugo Matthews had put his name on the scoring sheet, although Alex Clark’s conversion was wide. At 19-0 to Henley, it was looking to be a tough day for Bracknell.
With further tries before half time by Ben Jewsbury, Furio Dawkins and Alex Clark, all newcomers to the team, as well as by Captain, Ed Houghton, the half time score stood at 45-0 to Henley.
Bracknell managed to get 5 points on the score board as the second half began but with two prompt tries by Dylan Hall and conversions by Clark and a final try by Christian De Simone, the score stood at 66 points to 5 in Henley’s favour. It was decided that that was enough and the referee ended the game at 60 minutes which is the minimum time for the score to count.
