Cam close pre season with an encouraging performance

So we all gathered at Gordons School on a rather stormy looking Friday for the final pre season fixture against our local rivals Farnham.
The format for evening had been arranged so that both sides could field their strongest squads for an initial 40min hit and this would be followed by 2x20 min sessions to ensure all of the lads had a decent run.
In the event Cam turned up with almost 30 players while still missing several of the senior side while the visitors were a little light on numbers which meant that many of their players played the full 80 mins.

So the first 40 started with Cam quickly moving into the redzone and we saw Mac and Antonio in harness driving over with Mac claiming the try with about 5 mins played.
The restart was not handled well by the black and ambers and poor defending saw Farnham quickly level things up.
Throughout this period the Cam 8 were awesome particularly at scrum time and this pressure was rewarded on 15 mins when, following another 5m lineout drive, we saw Mac again using his power to cross for his second of the evening.
From the Farnham restart we then had the glorious sight of tight head Bazza being set free on his 22 and he used his startling pace and power to take play back into the Farnham half and a couple of destructive scrums in the visitors 22 saw #9 Ali take full advantage of a retreating defence before a neat pop to George saw the fireman cross for a well worked try with just 20 mins played.

As to be expected in these games play from both sides then became a tad scrappy but in the closing stages we again witnessed some great skills when Bazza, following up a kick ahead, at pace, took full advantage of the awkward 4G bounce, collecting the ball and setting off from halfway leaving the Farnham defence in tatters until a pop pass to Ben saw the fullback cross for the final score in this session which end 26-7 or 4 tries to 1.

The second and third periods saw both sides make lots of changes and also tiredness setting in but from the Cam perspective we again saw some very encouraging signs both in the forwards and backs. At this time we saw the introduction of the 18 year old pair Harry and Harrison into the row and they certainly rose to the challenge and this was typified when, in what turned out to be the last scrum of the session the engine room produced a massive scrum which completely destroyed the opposition – not bad for a couple of lads in pretty much their first game of adult rugby.

In general scoring in these two sessions was limited but all of us who were at the game will remember Shawa's amazing effort when he collected the ball on the Farnham 10m line and, using all of his power and pace, carved through the Farnham defence with no defender able to hold him and even when he was thrown to the floor he just bounced up again and continued before touching down under the posts – an absolutely amazing run – guess that's what is possible when you can dead lift 210kg!!!

So I imagine that Clarkey and his coaching team will be pleased with much of what they saw in the first session but they will certainly need to ensure that going forward the team protect hard won possession much better than they did at times in this game.
It was good to see the early results of our scrum coach Garcia Botta's input during the preseason. Garcia, a member of the Quins squad for several seasons, has been helping Clarkey and his team during the summer and we must hope that his continued input creates an even more dominant 8 than we witnessed this evening.

So, as always, the coaches have some challenges when it comes to selection for next Saturday when the 1s kick off their season with a home fixture against CS Stags ko 15.00,and the 2s start their league programme at Maidenhead and we also have the 3s with a friendly against Farnham also at Watchetts - let there be no doubt - Rugby Is Back!!!!!.