Honours and the trophy shared as the Academy 2s play Cranleigh in the Waterfall Cup

The day for the 2s began with a last minute change of pitch to the 3G artificial pitch at London Irish owing to the fact that the grass pitches at Irish were more like skating rinks at 9:30am after the hardest frost of the winter so far. Carpet burns are less painful than broken bones!

The Cranleigh side contained a couple of U18s sporting luxuriant ZZ Top style beards and these monster forwards opened the scoring with a nice 5 pointer.

Ben Cregeen, returning to the Farnham fold after the end of the school season with an impressive performance At Full Back, beat three Cranleighans to score under the sticks, ready for a Sam Johnston conversion. 7-5.

A few minutes later, a great kick and chase by Max Devergne gave Hamish Watson the opportunity to show his speed of thought and a quick lineout caught by Mattie Hodson who fed Ollie Wingfield to score. Johnston converts again to give 14-5 to Farnham at half time.

The second half started with two tries to the big Cranleigh lads taking the score to 14-19. The Farnham boys were beginning to look shaky until that man Cregeen showed his silky skills to equalise 19-19 before Cranleigh once again put their nose in front with another unconverted try 19-24.

The final whistle was fast approaching when Sam Johnston kicked over the heads of the defenders. Ollie Wingfield chased the ball down, passing superbly to Ben Cregeen to take his Hat Trick in the corner and to equalise.

24-24 was the final result after the touchline conversion eluded Sam J’s boot. After a hard fought draw it was agreed that Farnham and Cranleigh would share the spoils and Farnham Captain Joe Marsh held the trophy aloft with his Cranleigh counterpart. A superbly even game and a fair result. Thanks must go to Cranleigh who were superb opposition and who played the game in great spirit. Sharing first place after a game like this seemed a just reward for both sides.

Man of the match, as voted by the Cranleigh team was Hat Trick man Ben Cregeen who at times seemed to float over the ground, barely touching it as he motored past the defenders. Player of the tournament, as voted by his teammates, was Hamish Watson whose speed of thought and ability to read the game delivered scoring opportunities for his team at just the right times.