Scoreline flatters the home team

March 20th is the vernal equinox and as such heralds the start of spring. With the 6 Nations over (apparently Wales won) and matches kicking off at 3pm again, we start to look forward to drier pitches and more flowing games.

In March 2012, England enjoyed 175.4 hours of sunshine and record temperatures. Spring had definitely sprung.

Jump forward 12 months and somehow we had snow and freezing temperatures. As more than one spectator asked me, why the hell were we playing a friendly in those conditions?!?

That said, I’m really glad we did. Barnes 4s are two leagues higher than anyone else we have played since leaving the leagues and although a “social” side, they clearly have some decent players. From the kick off however, Quins showed that they were a match for Barnes and that it was game on. Consequently by half time, the score was very tight at 5-0.

The weather proved to be a great leveller and both sides’ big lads were making in-roads. At times though Quins’ defence (particularly on our own 5-metre) was immense and several seemingly nailed on tries were held out.

After halftime we took our time to wake up and conceded two quick tries. Unfortunately a scoreline of 15-0 meant the game was largely killed off but Quins were able to score a try of their own. Repeated thrusts by the forwards in Barnes’ 22 led to repeated infringements before Matt Forrest was finally able to crash over the line.

As ever there were some great individual performances and given the conditions, I’m delighted that we got a team out at all. It was also fantastic that 10 of the players had also run out against Black Baa Baas the week before. We need to continue this consistency in order to improve.