The Farnham Academy's sojourn through the Quins Cup this year has inevitably been rain interrupted as has much of the Rugby around the country. Round three, was originally to have been played on 9th February after round 2 on the 2nd Feb but the fixture secs have been battling storms Ciara, Ines, Dennis and now Jorge and so to find round 3 was able to go ahead after all on 1st March was good news indeed even though almost a month late.

As if to warn off the rain, Battersea were ferocious out of the blocks and were first to score after only 2 minutes of play. Battersea's Surrey County U18 fly half delivered the conversion despite the wind and so the score was 0-7 before the first 3 minutes of the game was up.

The Farnham boys were not daunted though and the Battersea boys were making being in the lead look hard, giving up multiple penalties. One of these delivered a line out on the 22. A great take lead to a maul and the maul lead to a fizzing pass to the black hatted Ben Atkins who forced his way between two defenders to score an unconverted try. 5-7

25 minutes in and this time it was Farnham who were conceding the pens. A soft penalty for offside spotted by eagle eyed ref Mike Hudson on the 22 gave Battersea a scrum. The Battersea front row had been schooling the Farnham front three in the dark arts all game and so it proved this time - The farnham defence held valiantly for three phases but on the fourth a hole appeared through which a Battersea shirt dove. Another metronomic Battersea conversion saw the score reach 5-14 just as the half time whistle was blown.

A stern half time talk saw the Farnham boys quickly on it. The high kickoff was brilliantly gathered by Ollie Wingfield and a couple of phases later Hamish Watson grabbed the ball and scored in the corner. 10-14 and the only difference between the two teams was the two missed conversions.

A ding dong battle ensued between the two evenly matched sides. As the game progressed the penalty count increased on both sides and eventually another one gave the Battersea 10 an easy kick in front of the posts to seal the win with a 3 pointer.

So 10-17 was the final score. Farnham have won one, lost one in the Cup with round two all to play for next week against Old Emanuel.
Coach Hamish Webb summed it up well. The boys may not have won but what they did was play some quality rugby. Fingers crossed we can make it equally hard for Old Emanuel next week as long as the next Atlantic storm gives us a chance to play.