Henley 3's 62-0 Farnham Royal

By David Lewis

The sun finally came out for Farnham Royal’s visit to Henley on Saturday, which offered Henley the opportunity to clinch their position of, at least mathematically, winning the league. 

Henley are undefeated this season and remained keen to hold on to that. With a 39-13 win against Farnham back in November and their recent strong performances, Henley were looking for another good win.  From Farnham’s kick off it was the return to the team of Ben Venner, playing at scrumhalf, who grabbed the first points with No. 10, Luke Brewin’s conversion putting a prompt 7 points on the board.

This was followed by second row, Josh Beech, scoring for Henley, and then Captain Toby Stevens, taking the score to 17-0 within five minutes of kick off.  It looked to be another rout as Farnham struggled to defend this onslaught of running rugby from Henley.

Farnham did manage to hold Henley at bay for a while but then Adam Porter from the centre went round the Farnham defence, which with Venner’s kick, took the score to 24-0. This was followed by a superb demonstration of handling by Henley’s backs as the ball went from player to player ending with Jack Davies on the wing, who added to Farnham’s misery.

It was not to be all one way and Farnham showed a determination to hold Henley back and there was another short period where Henley lacked some discipline and could not maintain their attacks.  At half-time, the score stood at 29-0.

At the beginning of the second half, Henley still lacked self-control which saw a yellow card issued, reducing Henley to 14 players.  This did slow down Henley’s pace, but only momentarily, as fullback, Duncan Zacks, claimed his points with Venner’s kick and then Adam Porter again.

Returning to the team for this game, was prop forward Ryan Lynch, who forced over the line, happily scoring against his previous club.  Also returning to the team and scoring at this point was Luke Bishop with Stevens converting.

The game was concluded with No.8, Ryan Porter, taking the final points, having received the final pass of the game off Ollie Roullier, who had made a spectacular individual run through Farnham’s defeated defence. As

Stevens converted the last points of the game, the referee, blew the whistle for the end for what had been a difficult day for Farnham, with the score at 62-0.

With three final games to go, Henley have sufficient points margin to have won the league. Promotion will depend on any restructuring by the rugby authorities over the summer break.