Romsey 35 : 26 Christchurch

Romsey RFC played their part on the weekend of the Six Nations by drawing a decent crowd to the touchline in between the televised offerings. They were treated to a breathless nine-try thriller against Christchurch.

The home side, captained by flank forward Harrison Scott, eventually came out on top 35-26. 

Romsey started at a high tempo and were rewarded after 12 minutes when scrum half Dan Penn Newman made a blind side break and burst through two would-be tacklers to make the score 5-0. Romsey’s scrum was in the ascendancy but determined opposition tackling kept Harrison Scott’s side at bay. 

A deep kick into enemy territory eventually provided Lewis Cartledge with the opportunity to plunge over from the back of a line out. 

The ten point lead allowed Romsey to play with more freedom, and a fluent counter attack after 35 minutes gave the skipper a chance to set sail for the try line from half way.

Aided by his streamlined haircut, the flanker streaked away to score under the posts. To underline his side’s dominance, he then ran a clever angle to score a short range try to round off a fresh wave of attacks. At half time, the blue and golds were 24-0 up, with the bonus point in the bag.

The action at the start of the second half looked ominous for the visitors. Prop Mike Streicher burst onto a pass from his scrum half but then inexplicably dropped the ball over the try line. The scrum that followed, however, had the Christchurch forwards in reverse gear and fly half Jim Lamont crashed over for try to make the score 29-0. 

It is to the visitors’ credit that they decided to fight fire with fire, and they ran in a try under the Romsey posts. Soon, they had doubled their rally to 14 after some enterprising play through the back line. 

With their half time lead dwindling, Romsey sensibly opted to kick two penalties to push their score up to 35, but two more Christchurch tries made the final score a respectable 35-26. 

Both sides left the encounter with a bonus point, a just reward for an afternoon of enterprising attacking rugby.