Newbury 7 Richmond 81

A well organised Richmond side with far too much pace and power for their callow opposition, duly put on a thoroughly professional performance to notch 13 tries in an eighty point demolition.

Richmond showed five changes from the previous week to demonstrate the emerging strength and depth of this year’s squad.

P.J.Clarke and Guy Thompson both made first starts after promising cameos from the bench, whilst Nick Barrett made his first team debut on the wing.

Barrett took only six minutes to get his name on the score sheet powering over on the blindside .

With both Peter Clarke and Thompson in the back row, Richmond did not lack for pace and Thompson, ever present in the early action, was the next try scorer following good work by Tom Gregory.

By now the gulf between the two sides was apparent.

Newbury’s young side never stopped working at their game and often tackled well.

But Richmond were able to make half breaks with their extra strength and speed, and their patient build up play inevitably found holes in the home defence.

The biggest challenge, successfully achieved, was to retain concentration and attacking shape and not get drawn into sloppy errors as the score mounted.

Four more tries followed before half time. Chris Davies stormed through the middle for one whilst the strong running Euan Sadden, playing in the centre, burst through a tackle for the bonus point fourth try.

Nick Barrett’s second owed a lot to Thompson’s sleight of hand, slipping a pass as he lost his footing and Toby Henry rounded off the first half after P.J. Clarke contributed well from full back. Ross Broadfoot kicked well from hand as well as adding five conversions in a 0-40 half time score.

The second half continued in similar vein with seven more tries as all the substitutes came off the bench to gain useful match time.

The versatile Thompson, covering for an unwell James Greenwood, played on the wing for half an hour and certainly did not look out of place whilst Doug Abbott and Guillaume Schueller demonstrated Richmond’s strength in back row options.

There were three tries in the first twenty minutes of the second half.

Broadfoot scored his first club try after the determined Sadden again broached the Newbury defence whilst Peter Clarke’s try owed everything to his and Toby Henry’s quick thinking from a tap penalty.

Tristan Wesley, part of a hard working second row, scored the third try which was a grunting effort from the pack.

At no stage did Richmond relax the pace or lose focus despite the succession of changes. And, in fairness, at no stage did Newbury’s young side stop trying or lose heart.

Thompson scored his team’s tenth try, doing remarkably well to swivel and get the touch down on the touchline.

Darryl Marfo was next, in typical bullocking fashion, having come on to replace Owen Gregory, who was well due a rest, having popped up all over the field to great effect.

With the score 0-69 and less than five minutes to go, Newbury interrupted the one way traffic to score their one try and it was a fine effort.

A break on the outside of the Richmond defence created the opportunity and Iain Herriott followed up well to touch down the kick ahead. Will Clarke added a good conversion.

But Richmond had the last word with two more tries. Davies got his second from 20m and then the last try was probably the best of the lot.

Sam Rowlands, making his debut as substitute full back, burst through with electrifying pace and kicked ahead for Nick Barrett, tracking him well, to take the ball at full pace and complete his hat trick. If Richmond needed a confidence boost, this win should certainly have provided it!

Tries: Barrett (3), Thompson(2), Davies(2), Sadden, Henry, Broadfoot, P.Clarke, Wesley, Marfo.

Conversions: Broadfoot (8)

Team: P.J.Clarke(D.Abbott), J.Greenwood (S.Rowlands), T.Gregory, E.Sadden, N.Barrett, R.Broadfoot, T.Henry, M.Berry, D.Burr (D.Simmons), O.Gregory (D.Marfo), T.Wesley, C.Davies, G.Thompson, T.George, P.Clarke (G.Schueller).