Easter Monday 2023 began cold, blustery and rainy. However, the day ended both gloriously sunny and successful with 22 hugely competitive former Barnes Colts (and a few of their Uni mates) playing at full pace, with bags of enthusiasm, enormous levels of defensive strength and an abundance of skill. For the first time in our history, Barnes won the Surrey U22s Smith/Shenton Cup!

The Surrey U22s Competition is designed to give former Colts players from Surrey clubs who have either started work or have gone off to university etc the opportunity of playing for their club in their own tough U22s competition.

The primary purpose of the competition is simple: to keep these Uni based players firmly connected to their home club whilst they’re all away at Uni. The pool matches were played over Christmas and New Year, with the Finals Day on Easter Monday. Having come top of our group in the initial Pool stages, Barnes U22s (made up of 22 x 18-21yr olds from 3 age groups) was entered into the Cup competition (the top competition) together with Reeds Weybridge RFC and Wimbledon RFC.

The matches for the Cup, Plate, Bowl and Shield were hosted by Esher RFC and, for the Cup competition, the plan was that Barnes, Reeds Weybridge and Wimbledon would play each other over 40mins on the main pitch in front of the main stand and clubhouse – preferential treatment indeed!

Reeds v Wimbledon played first, with Reeds taking the honours.

Barnes v Reeds: Our first match was against the big, strong and victorious Reeds Weybridge team. It was tough and attritional! Although we managed to score first, a true 2nd row try by the man mountain that is Hal K and topped off with a conversion by Jack (the 21st birthday boy!), Reeds dug in and battled back to get a converted try themselves: 7-7. With 2 minutes to go, and Barnow fighting hard in the Reeds 22m, we stepped up our pace off the back of a ruck, spun it out to Oscar (one of our original U6s!) at fly-half who pinged it back to Jack at Full Back who, running at full speed, found a nice neat hole in the Reeds defence to get that all important first win: Barnes 12-7 Reeds!!

Barnes v Wimbledon: With a very short 10mins turnaround time, we now faced a fresh Wimbledon side that had to win to stay in the fight. The Barnow Battlers knew, however, that an early try and with a dominant first 20mins we could drain the passion and fire out of Wimbledon and move closer to success.

How wrong we were!! Wimbledon showed their class, speed and gusto and took us apart down our left flank to score within the first few minutes (conversion missed) – Barnes 0-5 Wimbledon. Oh My God, this was going to be nerve wracking not only for me and Cam Rudduck (coaches) but also for the Barnes Massif (parents) behind us in the main stand! The Battlers gathered together and something big must have been said in that circle: at the re-start our boys exploded into action.

Our defence was immense, we took our lead from the Barnow 1s and our scrum was truly dominant. This gave us the foundation to launch a superb fightback; wave after wave of attack into the Wimbledon half and closer and closer to the red zone; mistake after mistake by Wimbledon gave us a number of penalties and a number of dominant scrums.

Eventually, off the back of one of those magnificent scrums, our Backs passed the ball sweetly one way and then the other and Patrick (outside centre) found a gap appear in front of him and crossed their line for a wonderful team try next to the posts (conversion by Jack): Barnes 7-5 Wimbledon.

Although that put us in a confident mood, Wimbledon were clearly not going down without a fight, and what a fight it was: back and forth for the next 20 or so minutes! Both teams were class and both teams never gave up. But time, strength and stamina were just with the Barnes Battlers; and with 5 mins to go another demonstration of forwards power and strength got us to their 5m and then as if by magic up pops our seriously committed and combative hooker, Shea, takes the ball off the back of our maul and drives it over for our winning try!! Barnes 12-5 Wimbledon!!

It’s been 15 years in the making and what a day and what a season for these boys!! I’m so proud of them, their commitment, their loyalty, their enthusiasm, their friendship … and definitely the way they PARTY!

Looking forward to them all getting involved in Barnow pre-season training and, for the 21yr olds starting with the Barnes men’s teams once they have finished at Uni in June. Good luck Lads, from your very proud Manager and Coach, Jason B!!