Cranleigh 1st XV beat Staines in final league game

09/04/24

Men’s

CRANLEIGH 1ST XV V STAINES PLAYED AT GUILDFORD RFC RESULT 64-10 REFEREE JASON PERFECT

TEAM 1 Tobias Macey 2 Pierre Goodwin 3 Jake Tetley 4 Graham Benton 5 Milo Livesey 6 Will Davies 7 George Disley 8 Charlie Pankhurst

9 Jamie White 10 Monty Balfour 11 Geoff Noonan 12 Jack Hannington 13 Phil Dandy 14 Mikey Rosser 15 Harry Crabtree

16 Liam Kennedy 17 Ben Terson 18 Dave Sexton 19 George Kitchener.

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With our home ground unavailable the the game was played at Guildford RFC .Our second team also had a resounding victory over Guildford 2nd Team .

Staines ,who have had a wretched season were only able to get 14 players to turn out at the start mostly Vets .However as the result indicates Cranleigh took full advantage of the situation and finished the league season ,with a result that pushed us up to fourth .To think on the 4th of February we were ,after a poor loss against Hamptonians we were three from the bottom of the league , The perfomances since have been excellent.

The game started in windy conditions with neither side taking control and it was 17 minutes when Cranleigh opened the scoring when Geoff Noonan got his first pass on the half way line and with his pace weaved in and out of laboured tacklers to score under the posts. .The game did not actually flow in Cranleighs way and seven penalties in the half and dropped passes did not help .

However when they did produce quick ball and back up they scored good tries .Jamie White /Will Davies /another by Geoff Noonan virtually unapposed added three more . Then the best try of the half with a break by Monty Balfour found Mikey Rosser to outpace the defence .

There was 10 minutes when Cranleigh were asleep allowing the Staines big forwards to trundlle over the line to score . Half time 33-5 .

Staines lost, due to injury, a player and carried on with 13 men .Jake Tetley was having fun in seeing how many of the opposition he could bulldoze through and was eventually left unapposed to score under the posts .Staines trundled another dubious try, followed by another try by Jake Teltley .Staines lost another player with concussion. With 5 minutes left Geoff Noonan scored his third try again by outpacing the defence. Harry Crabtree converted four tries and the final try was converted by a drop goal by prop Titch Macey ,to his delight .Final score 64-10

It was not a perfect performance from Cranleigh ,but understandibly difficult against poor opposition. A more settled side with decent substitutes has paid off for all the Guys and coaches winning the last five games of the season .

Report John Bailey