Farnham pay a heavy penalty
A DISMAL display by Farnham saw them hammered 50-10 at Chichester in London One South on Saturday.
Farnham played with the breeze in the first half and with a slight downhill advantage towards the Chichester clubhouse. All of the portents were good – Rob Mitchell back at No 8, Jamie Lowe into the second row and Pete Daly on the bench.
The scrum began well, Marco Cantido Azevedo, Jules Joris and Ben Edwards wearing down the opposition from the start. The lineout, mediocre this season to date, began to function with Ben Adams and Toby Comley dominating.
Then eight minutes in Joris was adjudged to have tip tackled the home fly-half and was banished to the sin bin for 10 very long minutes for the Black & Whites.
From the resulting penalty, Chichester opted for a scrum five metres out and rumbled over for the try. The full-back kicker making the into the wind conversion look easy.
From the kick-off Farnham went on the attack and got into their stride but the final pop pass was intercepted freeing up Chichester’s speedy left winger who skipped through two tackles to score in the corner for 12-0.
Worse was to come, the next move broke down in the home 22 and a raking clearance kick into the Farnham half was chased down by the rampant home backs.
Reece Stennett unfortunately slipped when recovering the ball and was swamped by the marauding Chichester centres who won the turnover and put in the winger for his second at 19-0.
The Farnham defence was pulled apart, in effect gifting the opposition two tries. Frustration mounted in the visiting ranks – Farnham on the attack and again a loose offload eagerly seized upon by the right winger to steal away and score in the corner for 24-0 at a point a minute.
Back Chichester came and from a lineout on halfway their powerful inside centre crashed through the defence and over for 29-0.
There had to be a resurgence and, with half-time approaching, fly-half Toby Salmon provided the first spark with a break through the home defence to free up brother Tim for a consolation first half try; 29-5, and the penalty count against Chichester began to mount.
To get back into the game Farnham had to score first in the second half but now into the breeze and with swirling drizzle it was always going to be a big task. Another mixup in midfield and the Chichester inside centre was on hand to smash his way over for his second and with an easy conversion it was 36-5.
Farnham had fared better for the first 20 minutes of the half, and went close to scoring but silly mistakes denied them tries. Again the rugby demons did their work with Tim Salmon yellow-carded for holding on with just 12 minutes to go. From the penalty the home right winger went over to increase the score.
Back came the visitors with time running out and, at last, a flowing backs move put Stennett over.
The clock was in the red as, once again, the weary Farnham defence was breached. A brilliant touchline kick saw Chichester reach the half century to secure a thumping win.