However, the season hasn’t gone their way and sitting 11th out of 12, and relegation a concern, they are in survival mode and looking for any points they can take away from games. OR’s still without Ryan Taylor – Travers but happy to welcome back Finlay Lock and Toby Francis. Captain Reill Franklin Talbot returned to the front row.
The game got of to the perfect start with OR’s putting the home side under pressure with the forwards trying to force their way over. Once enough defenders were committed the ball was moved to midfield where Gareth Stephens found a hole in the defensive wall to score the first try of the afternoon. In the 12th minute Cobham were awarded a Penalty which was converted to give the Home side their first points of the afternoon 3-7.
It was then Cobham who applied pressure to the Visitors try line very similar to the Reigatian try after the forwards couldn’t breach the try line the ball was moved wide and the Cobham Winger was able to touch down in the corner. The home side took the lead 8-7.
With half an hour played Cobham kicked ahead which was fielded by right wing Aran Courtney Walker. Reigatian ran the ball from within their own 22 Stephens was passed the ball just inside his own half and with a chip ahead beat a number of defenders he collected the ball and pass back inside to Lucas Overtoom who scored under the posts giving himself an easy conversion 8-14.
Next came a period of sustained pressure from Reigatian’s in the home sides 22. From an attacking lineout the OR’s pack again pushed for the line and again the ball was released and this time Max Coyle was on hand to take advantage of the space out wide and score Reigatian’s third try. The conversion was good and half time score was 8-21.
At start of the second half the ball remained live as both teams tried to kick for field position. Cobham kicked ahead only for Reigatian to run it again from inside their 22, Max Coyle gave a kick ahead to which Tom Allen collected the ball and won the race to the line. Conversion good and the lead was stretched to 8-28.
Next score came from a mid field scrum No8 Toby Francis fed scrum half Alex Skinner the ball worked to centre Allen who broke the gain line offloaded to Max Coyle who used his pace and scored under the posts for the easiest of tries. Converted by Overtoom 8-35.
Cobham to their credit worked hard to stay in the game and managed to score a couple of tries to claw the score back to 18-35 when OR’s ran the ball from their own half and the play seemed to have stopped when a loose pass went behind Jack Baart he collected the ball and managed to step his opposite number and get his pass away to Stephens who dummied his way past the last defender and used his pace to score just to the left of the posts. With Lucas Overtoom leaving the field with an injury Alex Skinner stepped up to kick the extra points. 18-42.
Cobham managed their fourth try to give themselves a try scoring bonus point to make the final score 23-42.
This leaves Old Reigatian second in the league on 62 points only 2 points behind leaders Battersea Ironsides. Next game is 17th Feb when 1st play 2nd at Battersea. A game that will go a long way to deciding who goes up to Regional 1 next season.
1.Reilly Franklin Talbot © 2. Ciaran Nestor 3. Toby Collister 4. Jack Baart 5. Dan Grant 6. Sam Foreman © 7. Finlay Lock 8. Toby Francis 9. Alex Skinner 10. Lucas Overtoom (vc) 11. Finn Coyle 12. Tom Allen 13. Gareth Stephens 14. Aran Courtney Walker 15. Max Coyle
16. Ciaran Lee 17. Harry Plowman 18. Harrison Mitchell
