The weather for the game was spring-like but the morning’s heavy rain produced a greasy surface at Monkton Lane on Saturday afternoon. This troubled both sides in the season-closing clash between Farnham and Gravesend. However, the Farnham boys were determined to bring a festival feel to the match given that three senior players had declared it their last 1st team game, that the skipper, Toby Salmon, was celebrating his 150th cap and that the team had secured 2nd place in the league. Led by man-of-the match Tim Salmon’s hat trick of tries, they did not disappoint.
Slow starters as usual, Farnham were 5 points down in the first two minutes. Playing in their black and yellow change strip, they conceded a penalty from the kick off. Gravesend kicked to the corner, and their burly prop peeled off the back of the line-out maul to trundle over scrum half Ollie Brown and dot down. The conversion out wide was missed.
The game ebbed and flowed. Despite missing some key players, Gravesend had come to play. However, the signs from Farnham were ominous. Flowing back line assaults launched by half backs Brown and Farnes came unstuck with a final pass spilt or a last-ditch tackle made. Gravesend were on the counter when that man Tim Salmon won a brilliant turn over. A couple of phases later and the Farnham backs broke out and Tim Salmon cracked the defensive line. He off-loaded to brother Mike who sped in from twenty metres out to touch down out wide. Conversion missed. Five all after ten minutes.
Farnham squandered a couple more chances to score as they tried just a little too hard to entertain. Then the ball stuck! Lovely inter play between winger Reece Stennett and Toby Salmon released Matt Farnes to scamper down the touch line and score. The conversion was missed. Within minutes another break through by the backs put second row Ben Adams into space and he went over in front of the posts. Tim Salmon completed the simple conversion and Farnham are pulling away. 17-5 on 30 minutes.
The Gravesend restart did not carry the required ten meters and, from the set scrum, a training ground move down the left side, with Ollie Brown on the loop, put Stennett in space. He offloaded to the omnipresent Toby Salmon who rounded the defence to dot down under the posts. Brother Tim converted. 24-5 on 32 minutes.
Gravesend did not lie down. Reece Stennett was called upon to put in one of his try-saving tackles and Farnham then infringed at the break down. Gravesend tap and go and pounded the Farnham line sucking in defenders until there was space on left through which they burst to score. The tricky conversion was good and with minutes left in the half, they have a foothold in the game at 24-12.
Gravesend came out fighting for the second period. Had it not been for some excellent work by Ben Adams to disrupt their maul, they could well have scored again. As it happened, from the ensuing Farnham set scrum, the ball was spun out to Tim Salmon who had two players outside him on the overlap. Ignoring the yells from the balcony to “Give it! Give it!”, Tim took it upon himself to shrug off the cover tackles and muscle over. He converted his own try. 31-12 with ten minutes of the half gone.
Farnham ran the ball back from the restart and having no fellow attackers left to pass to, Tim Salmon put in a huge cross-field kick that snuck into touch just shy of the Gravesend try line. Farnham pressured the Gravesend line out and won a scrum from which the ball was quickly released and there was Tim again to bullock over the line and to convert his own try. 38-12 and the third quarter of the match was done.
Within minutes, Tim Salmon was on the score sheet again! From a Farnham scrum on the Gravesend 22, Harrison Horner picked from the base and punched a sizeable hole in the Gravesend defence. The ball was quickly recycled, and there was Tim to barge over out wide. He missed this conversion. 43-12.
To their credit, Gravesend kept playing and but for a flying cover tackle by Stennett and superb work over the ball by Ollie Brown, they would have scored a consolation try.
As it was, despite the comfort of big lead, the Farnham D remained strong. Jack Haylett in only his third game for the 1st XV at flanker led the way. In one memorable passage of play, he made his tackle, bounced up and made the next, then bounced up and tackled again. Unfortunately, the third opponent he tackled did not have the ball and the penalty was conceded. However, it ably demonstrated the work rate and commitment of those coming through the ranks.
Jake’s brother George, in only his second game at prop, made sure of Farnham’s ball at the set piece and was a nuisance in open play. Indeed, it was his turnover in the dying seconds that got the ball to brother Jake in space to gallop over to score - much to the delight of the Tongham contingent of the Faithful. Matt Farnes was given the honour of making the conversion. Final score 50-12.
This final match of the season also marked the final game in a 1st team shirt for Mike Salmon, Ben Adams and (possibly) Toby Comley. Salmon M is held in high regard at the club for being the skipper who in 2017 took the club to the league and cup double with that memorable day at Twickenham. Adams has been a stalwart of the Farnham pack with over a hundred appearances and is recognised as the finest line-out specialist the club has ever had. Comley, the current club captain, and the leader of the side that dragged the club out of the lower divisions, also stated he would retire after some 200 appearances. However, after this match he mentioned to a former player that he might just keep going.
Presidents Podium: Tim Salmon (who else) 3, and 2 for Mike Salmon and 1 for Ben Adams – both try scoring retirees.