Farnham Royal 13-39 Henley III's
By David Lewis
Henley 3’s travelled to Farnham Royal last Saturday with high hopes of a win to maintain their top of the league position. For Farnham Royal it was their first home game this season, following a fire at their clubhouse at the end of the summer. Not unexpectedly this has made a difficult start to their season, having to play all their games away until now.
Henley’s success has not come without its own challenges as injuries start to take their toll. With two new players joining the team, in Tristan Bellin and Harvey Doyle, Henley find themselves having to adapt their play each week to an everchanging lineup, but it seems to be working.
It was quite a different start to most of Henley’s recent games. Farnham kicked off and were immediately challenging Henley’s defence. New starter Bellin on his return to rugby was sidelined very quickly with a hamstring pull which started the roll of substitutes coming on for further injuries.
It was a full quarter of an hour before Farnham scored after keeping up fairly relentless pressure on Henley; the kick went wide. Henley though were starting to take shape in their own attacks, and it was centre, Ollie Portch, who was first to score, with Elliot Cryne’s kick failing to find its target.
Full back Will Parton was next up after a great break from Henley’s three-quarter line, with Cryne’s kick failing once more, again from a very wide angle. Discipline was becoming a problem for Henley in terms of the referee’s interpretation of players not rolling away quick enough in the ruck. This resulted in a penalty for Farnham from which they added 3 points taking the score to 8-10 in Henley’s favour.
Next up for Henley was Ollie Roullier, with a well worked try. Captain, Luke Brewin’s kick joined, what was to be a dismal day for Henley’s kicks at goal, as it too fell short of the posts. With the referee continuing to exact a significant penalty count against Henley, Farnham missed a penalty opportunity, but it did result in Henley being reduced to 14 men as Prop Forward, Jim Hadfield, found himself heading for the touchline with a yellow card, the second in three games.
Farnham continued to stay in competition which awarded them a further try before half time. With Henley kicking from the restart, it was Parton again, who ran in a quick try with no kick by Brewin. With further injuries to Paul Goodall and Josh Butler, Henley were becoming stretched for replacements. This gave new starter Harvey Doyle his chance at scrumhalf which proved to be a positive move for Henley, as he quickly took control of that position.
Farnham found themselves penalised for a high tackle which led to them being reduced to 14 men, with Hadfield now back on the field for Henley. Jack Davies, on the wing for Henley was next to score, with centre Ollie Doyle stepping up for the kick which followed the day’s pattern and also missed. With the game heading to its’ last fifteen minutes, Henley led by 13 -25 but were now dominant and it was Roullier who claimed his second try with Cryne given a further chance at the kick which was successful.
The final try for Henley went to another recent recruit to the team, Dominic Bolding, with Cryne securing the final kick of the game, taking the score to 13 – 39 to Henley.
Despite looking patchy at times, Henley had won another game with a decent score. Strong individual performances by Ed Houghton and Tom Wise in the second row, Nick Stoddart on the wing, and the redoubtable Ryan Lynch in the front row, all contributed to another solid Henley result.
