With all the league matches completed for the season, we had one final 15 a side friendly match lined up. For the first time we had arranged to play on a Saturday afternoon, alongside our u12s and u14s, to showcase our junior rugby at the club’s St Georges Day Festival.

Farnborough were our opponents, this is a club we had encountered many times over the years and it was great they could come along for this match. They had assembled a sizeable team that looked a tough proposition for our mixed team missing the ‘Shropshire Four’ amongst others. This did give us the opportunity to give the 19 players who were available plenty of game time.

Farnborough started strongly and they dominated territory and possession, the home defence held firm and it was largely against the run of play when the ball was shipped out to Luca on the wing. He cut though the last couple of defenders for a well worked score. It was a similar pattern of play with Vandals absorbing pressure and ceding territorial advantage before breaking out again. This time Oscar was on hand to score. As half time approached, Troy grabbed a captain’s score before Farnborough grabbed a deserved try on the stroke of half time to put themselves back in the game.

Both teams rotated their players and sensed that the opening try of the second half would be key to the overall result. It fell to Arlen to wriggle through for a score. To their credit, Farnborough never gave in and continued to dominate territory and possession. The home defence was solid even when reduced to 14 men, they held firm. From a scrum 5 metres from their own try line, Christian broke down the blind-side and after a series of pop passes to supporting runners, it fell to Henry to ground the ball for a memorable 'length of the pitch' try. There has been a focus in the last couple of months to improve our support play, so to round off the season with a score like that was fantastic.

Farnborough were well led by their skipper Tom and the final score-line did not reflect how much they dominated territory and possession. The home team were resolute in defence and clinical with the chances they created. We learnt a lot about the differences between Surrey and Hampshire rules, which will hold us in good stead for our Tour to Hampshire.

For the record, this was the team’s 16th win of the season. The 3 defeats in competitive matches were all by a margin of one score, showing how far this team has progressed over the course of the season.