For Romsey’s first game of 2025, the promotion chasing side, headed down the road to local rivals Eastleigh. With Romsey prior to kick off sitting in third place with a game in hand on second-place Tottonians. With a bonus point victory, Romsey would move comfortably above Tottonians with a 3-point buffer.
The hosts kicked us off with the ball landing kindly into the bread basket of Romsey hooker Ben Hoad and because of some efficient rucking the ball was made available for Dylan Scott to play a simple pass back to Jim Lamont who picked out a brilliant kick-up to the Eastleigh 22 metre line( however Romsey could not capitalise from the resulting line out.) The horrid conditions for both sides made it difficult for either side to put together some significant phase play and caused the opposition problems due to a number of handling errors and loose passing as the pitch continued to churn up. Nevertheless, following an Eastleigh scrum just short of their own 22, Romsey won a vital penalty courtesy of ever-present flanker Ryan Daly, who couldn’t be missed due to his dashing new scrum cap, securing himself over the ball giving Romsey the platform they had been struggling to gain thus far. The resulting penalty was kicked to the corner through Jim Lamont. The line out was then missiled into the hands of Brad Piper, who with a little bit of help from the rest of the forward pack shunted themselves towards the try line. The driving maul eventually came to a halt less than 5 metres away from the whitewash and with some quick thinking, Romsey scrum-half Dylan Scott determinedly broke through a number of tackles to score the opening try of the contest. Unfortunately on this occasion, the try was unconverted so after 10 minutes the score was 5-0 to Romsey.
Romsey would immediately charge back into the Eastleigh half with a brilliant solo run from fullback Oli Coburn running from his own 22 line up to the Eastleigh 10-metre mark only to be halted by his own two feet tripping him up. This break was then followed up by subsequent powerful carries from prominent ‘strike’ runners such as Hampshire U20 prop Michael Streicher. Although, Eastleigh stood strong defensively and made a few line breaks eventually being awarded a penalty around 40 metres out in which they attempted to go for the posts( an attempt which ended up being well short). The following 20 minutes after the first try were pretty scrappy from both sides with some glimpses of quality. This was until a bruising line break was made by Romsey’s tight head prop from across the pond, Ian Milanak, who was eventually tackled due to some illegal play from Eastleigh in the ruck for which a penalty was awarded. No sooner was the penalty awarded was it quickly taken again by Dylan Scott who charged at the hosts who had not retreated 10 metres as required which therefore, resulted in yet another penalty. This one was far closer to the posts however on this was not converted and couldn’t extend Romsey’s lead by 3.
Moments later after some lovely interplay between Brad Piper and Ryan Daly, the latter popped the ball out to Oli Coburn who made yet another lung-busting run taking on all the oncoming Eastleigh players then only to be stopped by an illegal high tackle from one of the opposition players. The referee deemed that a piece of illegal play had halted the Romsey fullback’s progress to the tryline and therefore awarded a penalty try to Romsey and as customary with a penalty try along came a yellow card for the guilty Eastleigh forward.
The theme of the match was marauding runs from kick-off and following the penalty try Brad Hughes followed suit charging through multiple challenges he ran roughly 30 metres before his basketball-style pass couldn’t find his second-row partner Ollie Glanville and instead was dived on and gathered by Eastleigh however Glanville was in position to strip them of possession and win an important penalty deep inside the Eastleigh half.
This then led to a number of phases allowing the ball to spread wide to the likes of Ben Powell and Josh Cleife. After some dogged defending from the hosts, it was going to take something special to break through and fly half Jim Lamont delivered a real moment of quality after he nonchalantly dinked a ball over the top looking for an oncoming runner in blue and gold. There could not have been a more popular try scorer on the day than the birthday boy Brad Piper who timed his run to perfection to collect Lamont’s kick untouched and dive over the line. This try was converted to make the score 19-0 to Romsey which led the visitors nicely into the half-time interval.
At half time, captain Harrison Scott and his vice captains Ollie Soundy and Jim Lamont would be very pleased with the performance so far given the terrible playing conditions and the only goal for the second half would be to grab that bonus point victory and keep Eastleigh quiet.
The second half began with Eastleigh receiving the restart from Lamont but after some brilliant line speed led by Tyler Beardsley forced a fumbled pass from Eastleigh which was capitalised on by the skipper Harrison Scott, which rewarded Romsey a penalty straight in front of the posts which Jim Lamont dispatched comfortably to make the score now 22-0 to the blue and gold.
Eastleigh responded to being set back further on the scoreboard with a couple of decent phases the first real threat to the Romsey try line but after some brilliant defence on our own line by Brad Hughes and Piper the home side were pinned back. Romsey even managed to reverse an attacking scrum in our own 22 thanks to the firepower and fresh legs from the bench of Lewis Cartledge and Will Harrison which led to a relieving clearance kick from Lamont.
Despite this, the Eastleigh pressure continued to mount and due to a lack of concentration defensively Eastleigh had a 3 on 1 on the outside and finally made the pressure tell with some good hands allowing them to help themselves to a consolation try which was swiftly converted to make the score 7-22 to Romsey.
Romsey were keen to respond positively to Eastleigh’s try and did so emphatically after yet another huge win against the head in the scrum in the Eastleigh 22 after a dozen phases of pick and go. Jim Lamont eventually crashed over straight under the posts and slotted the extra two points to bring the score back up to a healthy 29-7 securing a crucial bonus point in the bid for promotion come the end of the season.
Romsey could smell blood now, and after a loose pass by one of the Eastleigh forwards outside centre, Tyler Beardsley improvised as the ball hit the mud bath of a pitch and hacked the ball through brilliantly chasing the ball, determined to get his name on the score sheet. Beardsley collided with an opposition player but due to some excellent support play from substitute Jay Hodges he scampered onto the ball and dotted down to surely seal victory for Romsey. Although the delirium of a fantastic breakaway try didn’t last long the referee pulled the play back as he deemed there was a knock-on by a Romsey player in the build-up.
Despite this, all was not lost as Romsey continued to pry away at the Eastleigh line. Ben Powell slightly overcooked a grubber kick through the defensive line and, therefore, handed Eastleigh a 22-metre drop out but this kick was poorly chased by the home side and landed into the hands of a grateful Oli Coburn who charged through three tackles using his brute force to break through and carved his way under the posts for a fantastic solo try which furthered Romsey’s lead 34-7 and was again converted by Lamont so 36-7 Romsey lead as we enter the final 10 minutes.
The pressure continued from Romsey as the ball was well stolen deep in the opposition half by Ollie Glanville and a neat kick through saw Romsey captain Harrison Scott crash over for yet another try for Romsey which again was converted which meant the score now stood at 43-7 to Romsey. The Romsey side stuck together for the final flurry of Eastleigh pressure and ran out comfortable winners in a real team performance with the score ending 43-7 to Romsey.
Captains comments:
“I thought the squad showed some real grit in an easy banana skin game. It shows the growth of this club as we continue to grow and push up the league table.”
Coaches thoughts –
“The lads played a very patient game today on a very muddy pitch, and scoring 43 points is a huge achievement. Eastleigh is a tough place to come and get a result.
The selection was difficult this week due to a lot of people putting their hands up and long may it continue. I thought Ben Hoad, Ryan Daly and Brad Piper had outstanding games today.”