Romsey fall 3 games from Twickenham
Romsey senior men’s team season finally ended in a hard-fought defeat away in the depths of Devon at the hands of Old Technicians in the last 16 round of the Papa Johns Cup. The team took the field with high hopes after a promotion gaining season but the long away trip to Plymouth was a step too far for head coach Jason Berry’s squad which was a blend of youth and experience, the combined age of 7 players was 258, the other 12 came to 248.
The game started brightly with Dan Murrant taking the opening kickoff back with interest which allowed his brother Jack to unleash Romsey’s backline but a knock on thwarted the move. The first scrum saw Romsey under a bit of pressure as the squat Devonian front row manage to get lower and drive the visitors backwards giving them a penalty and a chance to relieve the pressure. From the ensuing lineout they sent waves of heavy runners at the Romsey defensive line but were repulsed by solid tackling by debutants Oli Pike and Ricky Drewitt and this combined with the jackaling skills of Dylan Argent and Harrison Scott kept the home side at bay before a thundering clearance kick from Ben Powell cleared their lines.
From the lineout OTs attacked but their handling let them down and the pass out in the centres was allowed to hit the floor allowing Tyler Beardsley to swoop and show an electric turn of tofu powered speed to outstrip the defence to give Romsey the lead slightly against the run of play. Jim “the prop playing 9” Lamont added the extras to make it 0-7 after 10 minutes.
With Elliott Johnson propelling Ryan Daly skyward at lineout time the ball was slickly passed down the line to Ollie Soundy who shimmied his way past his opposite man fed back inside to Dylan Scott who was thwarted by a fine tackle by his opposing full back but OTs had infringed earlier in the build-up and this gave the kicking prop Lamont a chance to extend the lead which he took with aplomb to make it 0-10.
OTs regathered the kickoff and began to use their forward runners to wear down the Romsey youngsters and their efforts bore fruit as they finally found a gap in the defence and opened their account to bring the score back to 7-10. Unfortunately, the restart failed to go the requisite 10m and from the ensuing scrum OTs attacked and set up a ruck just inside the Romsey half, when Ian Milanak had a momentary “Marty McFly” moment, forgot that you need to enter the ruck from behind the rear foot and returned to his college linebacker days coming on qb blitz round the corner and was deemed to have made contact slightly high and dangerously, resulting in a yellow card. The penalty was converted to make the scores level at 10-10.
A reshuffle saw the aging Darran Hall join the fray along with local boy Oliver Glanville and while Romsey were adjusting the OTs winger snuck over to give them the lead for the first time at 17-10.
Romsey attacked valiantly with Jack Murrant breaking through but he had elected to have boom and pow on his boots rather than long studs and slipped approaching the final defender which allowed the OTs to hold out until half time.
The second half started cagily with both sides making mistakes and not being able to capitalise on them although Jay Hodges did make a long mazy run after receiving a clearance kick and then analysing his route before setting off which gave Romsey a penalty that the wind forced wide.
With 10 minutes gone in the second half, Milanak looking for a late round draft pick to join the Steelers, launched himself into a large tackle on the chest of his opposite number but forgot to wrap his arms which the referee deemed to be worthy of a yellow card. Unfortunately, this meant that it now became a red and Romsey were to play the last 30 minutes with 14 players. The resulting penalty was slotted to make the score 20-10.
In a cunning attempt to fill the space the coach sent on a man the same width as 2 players, the veteran Nick Creal, who delved into his full locker of shithousery during his time on the pitch in an attempt to spark a comeback.
This almost paid off after one rampaging run the ball was sent wide to Josh Cleife, fired up by a broken phone screen, bounced of a defender and outpaced another before being hauled down by the last man.
The visitors held out valiantly until the final minutes when the effects of the 36-week long season finally told and OTs scooted over to make the final score 27-10 and end Romsey’s hopes of getting to Twickenham.
Post match head coach Jason Berry was magnanimous in defeat saying “Congratulations to Old Techs for the win. Massive well done to the two colts for stepping up. It was a nice physical game, with a full bench and a full strength team I think we would have won this type of game. However, it’s been a long season and a 12 hour day is a big ask so thank you to the lads that said yes”.
Captain Harrison Scott said “I thought we defended well for large parts of the game, a real welcome to rugby for a few of the upcoming colts but perhaps it was just a game too far for this young team”.
Thus, the curtain falls on a highly successful senior season which saw Romsey win 16 games, draw 2 and only lose 4 whilst gaining promotion to Counties 2 Hampshire using a total of 47 players, along with getting a twos side out of 3 occasions, the future is looking bright for the club as a whole.
