With the sad passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, this last week has been incredibly sad for us all. I was very moved by the respect shown by all our teams before their games last weekend, and in particular the reaction of the Minis and Juniors and Colts before their respective training sessions, it was very moving, and I am sure the emotions of this momentous event will remain with them all their lives.

I am sure everyone associated with our club will join me in sending our love and condolences to King Charles III and his family at this time.

Moving onto rugby matters, it was another good weekend for Barnes RFC, particularly for the Men’s and Women’s 1st XVs who both won away against tough opponents, the Men overcoming arch-rivals Guernsey Raiders 17-32, who we haven’t beaten since 2018, and the Women winning 7-32 away to Belsize Park. Both 2nd XVs were in action too, and both lost alas. The men lost 41-17 away to Bishop Stortford, although 4 tries were scored by the oppo at the end of the 2nd half which skewed the score rather. The Women’s 2nd XV lost away to Belsize Park 12 – 5, an incredibly encouraging result with so many new players in the squad which augurs well for the season ahead.
[
Match reports for all of the games are below my intro.

This weekend, the Men’s 1st XV is in action again, this time at home against one of our oldest adversaries, and one of the closest with Dorking RFC visiting. We have to look back to 2017 for the last time we played Dorking, and on that day, we won convincingly 64-21 at Barn Elms. But much has changed since then for both sides. Although Barned appear on the top of the table (first time ever) after winning both of our opening games, Dorking have also made an impressive start, smashing Worthing last week and losing narrowly to the legends of Blackheath the previous week. Our biggest opponent this week could well be complacency, we need to be bang up for this game, there is no doubt that Dorking will be viewing this as “the big one” that it undoubtedly is and we need to approach this game as we have both games so far this season, I have no doubt that we will!

Our Men’s 2nd XV face the toughest side in the Raging Bull League this weekend in Richmond Vikings, whilst on Sunday our Women’s 2nd XV are back in action travelling to Battersea Ironsides 2nd XV for their game.

Whilst the mood of the country is sombre and will remain so until the funeral of Her Majesty on 19th, we look forward to a great weekend of Barnes rugby, all played in the original spirit that we so embrace at Barnes RFC.

There will be a minute’s silence before the Barnes v Dorking game.

Onwards and Upwards Barnow!

Long Live The King!

Michael Whitfield - Chairman - Barnes RFC

This weekend’s games in summary:

Saturday 17th September Fixtures

- Barnes Men’s 1st XV vs Dorking 1st XV - 3pm KO

- Richmond Vikings vs Barnes 2nd XV - 1pm KO

Sunday 18th September Fixture

- Battersea Ironsides Ladies 2nd XV vs Barnes Women 2nd XV - 2.30pm KO

Here are last week’s match reports in detail courtesy of Rich Fenech, Ruth Mottershead and Ash Brandon:

Guernsey Raiders 17- 32 Barnes RFC 1st XV 32

This week’s match report is courtesy of Richard Fenech, our Honorary Secretary, previously Vets Captain and 1st and 2nd XV player

Fortitude
Like a Swiss clock, everything seamlessly went to plan with the guys getting themselves out to Guernsey early morning without a hitch, other than our Director of Rugby Jack Heald (go and ask him!) and indeed new ‘Baby Rhino’ AKA Rory Marsh who has a good story on his travel protocol!

Otherwise, the squad was well-fed, and in perfect form as they entered an equally perfectly prepped changing room (Originals will understand what I am referring to)!

Yours truly broke away from the Raiders Ladies Day lunch which was awash with miles of fake lashes, strappy heals galore and an array of dazzling (and daring) dresses, although none of this was to deter me from sharing a few rehearsed words in a changing room environment brimming with energy!

The entire squad listened intently to poignant remarks on what was a momentous, constitutionally historic day and how the last 70 years have shown the indisputable ‘fortitude’ of Her Late Majesty regardless of understandable polarised views that ‘fortitude’ (amongst countless other virtues) had to be embraced today for 80 minutes! The mood, and seriousness, in that changing room for those few moments, for me, was as good as it gets.

Back to lashes, pouts and tequila slammers as starters were served!

A brilliantly bright and warm afternoon greeted the referee and stern officials amidst two powerfully and evenly matched sides as everyone stood poised for two humbling silent minutes…

Now, this bit may fluctuate! You see back in the day, seven years’ worth of Vets Skippers’ match reports morphed into copy/paste… unless I scored… so, yup, mainly copy/paste! (For accuracy, please refer to the DOR or the imperious skipper in Josh Davies……do read on….!!)

From the off, Barnes showed that every minute of the preparation that had gone into this fixture since June was worth it. The boys flew into Raiders receiving the kick-off, and I have absolutely no idea how (as I juggled phones to text club WhatsApp groups) but Josh Davies went over for a try in the second minute in the far corner, which was perfectly slotted over by Louis Ellis at 10.

Simply put, Guernsey Raiders looked stunned, 800 friendly Guernsey supporters in the crowd shocked, and the coaches on the Barnes bench looked calm as! Raiders came straight back and did so for most of the afternoon with some great attacking lines, but Barnes’ defence and overall work rate was just too much, suffocating Raiders the whole time.

The Ref wanted a slice of the action so must have given a lone Barnes player a penalty and thus the score nudged up to 3-5, but only momentarily! Barnes came back attacking down the far touchline and sending Cam Roberts over for a brilliant try with Louis again adding the goodies!

3-12 to the green and gold visitors.

So here is the ‘in-flight LHR-MLA’ synopsis: Josh Davies went over again for another try and Ellis added the two points……we are 27 mins in and it’s 3-19 to Barnow!!!

Why?

Well, if I write it here, the entire league will know and that’s just stupidity!!

But our lineouts are sublime, our pack has more tight heads than you would find on an Argentine stag weekend and so scrum options are infinite (at the moment – but it’s a long season!) and our defence is near textbook! What Raiders scored off was the classic Tigers driving maul; effective but, let’s be honest, bor… not that exciting!

I salute our Skipper in Josh Davies at 9 for his hat trick! Utterly brilliant leadership and calm organisation. And, yes, Raiders pulled it back to 17-22 and we were a man down for the last 14 minutes yet still, the boys never gave an inch. Their belief and commitment were imperious and for all the new players amongst them, they still don’t know how their sheer brilliance has broken the glass ceiling in a fixture blighted with such close losses over the last ten years.

There were some really impressive performances, but I want to single out Woody at tight-head, my position too - yes… but a shrewd tactical call by DOR brought him off at 33 mins, and rightly so as the heat was fiercely intense. Though when he came back on at 60 all cooled down and stiff (probably sore too), he demolished Raiders in their key attacking scrum!

As a player (still), I rarely get to see our 1st XV play, so how fortunate and privileged I was to be as close to the team as I was on this historic day and imperious victory. Fortitude. (And heaps more where that came from in the tank too!)

The Raiders supporters were not so vocal now, other than the ‘Ladies’ looking for lost lashes amidst their eighth round of ‘slammers’!! Thank goodness the equally “fortitude” Hannah Samuels in her patient way was there to protect me!!!
The final score was 17-32 away to Guernsey and Barnes are for the first time ever top of National League 2 East!

I have no doubt the coaching team will carefully, directed by Jack Heald, bring them down to earth in training. They will need it…we face Dorking next who put away Worthing with a 20-point margin! We ALL owe it to them to support that training, get behind them and cheer on the 1s; they look like a pretty special bunch.

Aurigny flew us back to London late, so we quietly sipped Tea and ate Eccles cakes!
Did anyone see our baby rhino!!!!??

Belsize Park Women’s 1st XV 7 – 32 Barnes Women’s 1st XV
On Saturday 11th September Barnes Women's 1st XV played Belsize Park 1st XV in a friendly warm up game before the 22/23 season kicks off. New coach Chris has introduced a new playing system, and the aim of the game for us was to try it out against a live opposition.

The game was controlled by Naomi, who has joined Barnes from Tabard this season, coming in at fly half. At scrum half we had Angie, who has moved in from her usual position on the wing. Between them they bossed us through the new system, and for the first 15 minutes of the game we ran our moves, steadily marching Belsize up the pitch. Eventually we hit two hard forwards pods in a row, then hands through the backs saw fullback Lily score in the corner. A beautiful well worked team try, which gave us all confidence in the new structure.

The game continued with Barnes having most of the possession, as even when Belsize were attacking our forwards managed to turn them over after just a few phases. A few minutes later outside centre Eleanor ran through off a move from a lineout to score under the posts, then convert her own try.

Belsize had some serious possession towards the end of the first half and managed to pin Barnes back on our own try line. However, our tackling was strong, and we stayed calm and eventually won the ball back. Strong runs up the wing from Lily and Lucy put us back into our own half. This was soon followed by Sasha making a fantastic line break, supported by Taz and Amanda. The ball came out to the backs, and hands down the line again saw Lily go over in the corner. We went into half time 17-0 up.

Everyone was excited to play the second half, as we were all fired up by how well our new game play was working. We attacked hard, and it wasn't long before a run from the centres then an offload to Vice Captain Morv saw her go over in the corner. 22-0 Barnes. Soon after this our forwards managed to draw the Belsize defence yet again, and hands down the line saw winger Zoe score. 27-0.

Our discipline started to fall apart slightly during the second half, and we gave away a lot of penalties, giving Belsize the chance to get back in the game. Our defence was strong however, and we took the ball back. Once again, our structure was too much for Belsize, our forwards took us up to the line, then quick hands out saw Lily go over for a hat trick. 32-0.

With 10 minutes to go we resolved to not give away another penalty, which of course led to us giving away 4 in a row. Our defensive line broke down slightly, and Belsize ran through for a very well deserved try and conversion. 32-7.

Barnes kicked off with 2 minutes to go. We managed to regain the ball from the kick-off and played error-free rugby for a good 10 minutes, much to the annoyance of the referee who clearly wanted a reason to end the game. We hadn't finished though, and our forwards crashed us up, with Morv going over for her second. Final score 37-7 to Barnes.

It was a brilliant performance by the whole team, with every single try being a true, well worked team try. Special shout out to Jovi who turned over about 6 scrums as hooker, and Angie who was exceptional in her first game as scrum half for the 1s. I couldn't have been prouder as captain, and I can't wait to see how we do in the league this season.

Belsize Park Women’s 2nd XV 12 - 5 Barnes Women’s 2nd XV
Last weekend the mighty 2’s had a chance to run out against Belsize Park women’s 2’s and Bec Belles in a pre-season friendly round robin game. It was the perfect introduction for no less than 5 new players to cut their teeth playing rugby, with a debut try from Liv (Llama) Ponsford in the final 5 minutes of the first game against Belsize Park. The try came off the back of some really well-structured forwards play to create space and she powered through a small gap and about 3 defenders to touch down over the whitewash.

A 2nd try came from Jane Yang on her Barnes debut (she’s been honing her skills all summer playing pre-season games for other London based teams and the extras have really paid off) as she flew down the left wing with astonishing pace to score the only Barnes try of the 2nd game against Bec Belles.
Brand-newbies Tara Minto and Jos Martin used their phenomenal strength to not only power through/over the defence on multiple occasions, but also to keep our scrums tight while we were playing contested scrums. Seasoned player and forward of the match Meli Vilca had a stormer at hooker, throwing some very decent darts at lineout time to set up a strong base for our attack.

Newcomers Julie Loretto and Carys Fowler were huge in defence, chasing down and flattening anyone who dared to be in their path. Kate (Smiler) Weighell was on form, carrying the ball and setting the line for the newbies to follow her lead, while returning Barnes speedster Rochelle Morris-Stewart put in some of the most impressive cover tackles seen on a pitch, dominating her role at fullback. Allie Johnston stayed true to her Canadian heritage, chopping down attackers like a lumberjack and gnawing away at the opposition’s defence like a beaver with her big carries, all whilst playing out of position at centre. We wish Allie a speedy recovery and look forward to having her back on the pitch in a month or two!
Another debutant who put in a huge shift at scrum half was Izzy Jackson (back of the match) who showed some real game sense, slowing play down and settling the team at times when things were a bit frenzied. And last but by no means least, VC Maria Cienfuegos laid down a huge marker for the team to follow with her energy and determination in defence. She rucked and carried and tackled like a machine, setting a massive example to the team as pack leader on how to keep your head up and keep going when the chips are down.
When we were able to get our structures in place, the team was a real force to be reckoned with, and against Belsize Park Women we managed to hold them in their half for about 70% of the game – we can’t wait to convert that sort of territory and possession into scores as the season progresses. It was a very promising 12 - 5 loss to them, and considering we had 5 brand new players, we are happy with that result.

Our game against Bec Belles was a good test for the 2s, with a bit of a masterclass from the Belles on distribution and making the most of outside centres and wingers. We are proud though that they didn’t bust through the middle of our defence to score and it was a true testament that even though they were fresh (we’d already played a match against Belsize Park women when we faced them) and playing in a league above us this season, we can still mix it up with the big guns. The team’s attitude and work rate were huge even as they rolled on their many subs, and not a single Barnes head dropped throughout a fairly comprehensive spanking. Everyone worked for each other and backed one another up and that’s all we could ask for. Thanks to coaches Andy Pickering, Chris Rolfe and Nick Hill for guiding the team through preseason and leading us on Sunday.

Looking to the week ahead, the women’s 2nd XV has the first of our cup games as we face our derby rivals Battersea Ironsides women at Garratt Green on Sunday. Kick-off is 2pm and we’d love to have some supporters down to cheer the team on!