Farnham U14bs vs Old Caterhamian U14as

On a warm, but windy Sunday morning in Caterham the Farnham U14Bs got their first round robin league match underway with a game against the Old Caterhamians U14A squad

Playing the first half was going to be demanding on the Farnham team playing up a significant slope and against a rising breeze.

The team started the game well holding the home side in the scrummage well in a free flowing game of rugby where both sides attacked. The intensity of Farnham 's tackling had raised a notch even from their previous match with great commitment being shown by all of the players. Farnham were playing a running game with great use of the whole back line and driving thrusting runs by the forwards.

However after 5 minutes Old Cats scored a breakaway try in the corner to take the lead. The convention being narrowly missed in the swirling wind

Old Cats 5 Farnham 0

Farnham were not daunted by going behind and had a number of probing moves down the back line. One such move ended just short of the Old Cats line with the final pass just failing to go to hand. The commitment in tackling shown by Jake Kimberley was admiral with him making multiple tackles one after another to thwart Old Cats attempts to build pressure on Farnham. Jake Kimberley was ably aided by Oliver Wingfield with thrusting runs, on one occasion just being stopped a yard shy of try line for the equalising try. The backs running was epitomised by "Man of the Match" Mattie Hodsen with direct, strong running at speed followed by well timed off loads.

This was a great game of rugby to watch as the thrust and counter thrust from two equally matched sides made the result difficult to predict. With 1 minute of the half to go, slightly against the run of play, Old Cats scored another breakaway try to extend their lead to 10.

HT: Old Cats 10 Farnham 0

The second half saw Farnham with the hill and the wind in their favour. Following intelligent positional kicking from Noah Eldridge the Farnham backline bypassed the Old Cats back line for Samuel Johnston to score a well deserved try in the corner

Old Cats 10 Farnham 5

This score led to a period of pressure from Farnham with Harry Tote being stopped within inches of the Old Cats try line. However, the speed of the Old Cats counter rucking was superb and managed to blunt each of the Farnham attempts at the equalising try. After 3 successive huge tackles by Jake Kimberley unfortunately he had to retire hurt. Farnham still pressed for another try, but were finally undone just before the end following a powerful running from one of the Old Cat's centres scoring the winning try under the posts

Final score: Old Cats 17 Farnham 5

Post match special mention was made by the coach Sam Foskett for Jake Kimberley, Oliver Wingfield and Mattie Hodson praising their commitment and effort

The quality of the rugby led to a brilliant game for the spectators, with great end to end rugby from both sides. The progress of the team this year shown in this game was summed up by a quote from captain William Mylchreest who said:

"We were the better team but we just didn't finish our chances as they did . It was like playing Esher A team last year when remember we lost 50 nil so we have come a long way."