Farnham beat old rivals

Farnham’s old rivals easily beaten
This week saw Farnham take on old rivals from the past two seasons, Old Cranleighans. The two teams have travelled up the league table together and games have been evenly spread with both teams usually winning their home fixture. Old Cranleighans seem to be struggling mid table this year with only wins over Wellington and Shanklin, Farnham’s next opponents. The now ever consistent Farnham side had a few changes with James Franklin coming in to second row replacing the absent Crabbe and the partnership of Penn and Salmon were in the centres. A high class bench with Corlett and Weeks for the threes and Dean Chiverton up front showed the strength in depth that Farnham now display.
With only a day to go to the end of BST the skies were dark and full of showers, but a good crowd were out to support Farnham. The crowd were not left long before celebrating Farnham’s first try. Farnham kicked off the first half into a breeze, and O/Cs knocked it on straight away. It was looking like a bad day for handling with a wind and rain both hampering good hands. Farnham’s first move as such saw an early try. From the first scrum Ollie Brown passed the ball to stand off Rubio who offloaded inside to winger Chas Penn, who in turn fed his brother Chris who put Mike Salmon through for an early try. The conversion was unusually missed by Rubio and a 5-0 score was on the board inside 4 minutes. This score was to stay the same till half time even though there were many threats to the OCs line. In fact the ball went over from Comley, Daly and Salmon, but all were pulled back for offences in the build-up. During the half there were two yellow cards, the first for crowd favourite Fran Meagher and the second to an OCs player.
The second half was started by Farnham and it was not long before they were back into scoring form. A wide run from full back Hills was kicked through and OCs were forced into touch 5 m out. The Farnham pack caught and drove the ball over, Bond was at the bottom of the pile up and claimed a good score. A wide conversion was missed by Rubio. The next again was a result of a Hills run, that centre Chris Penn kicked down the pitch for another line out at 5 M. A copycat catch and drive gave the same result, Bond over for his second try of the game. It was not long after this that consistent Farnham pressure saw forced OCs back towards their line. A slight bit of bad luck then gave Farnham another try. A failed clearance from behind the post saw the ball ricochet of the post and as usual Bond was there to touch it down and collect his third. This ne was almost by the post and Rubio converted his fist of the day. This brought the score to 22-0. By this time an exhausted OCs pack were being totally dominated by the power of Farnham.. After sustained pressure and another scrum, the Farnham pack pushed OCs off the ball, and close control from Daly saw him drop over for a pushover try. This was the only one of I believe 3 attempts, but was enough with Rubio’s conversion to earn Farnham a 27-0 win. A good win but the crowd were amazed that another 4 or 5 had not been scored. The win keeps Farnham in second place behind KCS but will Ellingham and Ringwood close behind.
Next weeks game is at Shanklin on the Isle of Whight, followed by the Bonfire night.