Fullerians 1st XV start their season with a win against Barnet in the Herts Tankard.

Disco brace gains just reward for Fullers dominance

This was Fullerians 1st XV first game of the season and was the first round of the Herts Tankard. Barnet has been Fullerians nemesis in recent years and was pleasing to get the monkey off the back for Fullerians.

New look Fullerians with players returning from University or just a break started brilliantly when their dominant pack caught and drove from the line out to see No8 Dan Longhurst (Disco) score. Fly half Nick Heley continued his kicking prowess to add the extras.

Fullers continued to control the game in all aspects in the early exchanges but forced the last pass or were over exuberant with the ball and couldn’t capitalize on their dominance.

Later in the half they were repeatedly penalised at the breakdown and were punished with some fine penalties by the Barnet fly half.

The half time break enabled Fullers to regroup and stop competing so much at the break down giving so many penalties away. Good strong running by the Fullers pack saw Barnet get on the receiving end of frequent penalties as they could not stop phase after phase of Fullerian attacks.

Wisely on the Barnet 5 metre line Fullers went for the scrum when the penalty was awarded and pushed the opposition over for the second and decisive try of the game. Longhurst controlled the ball well at the base of the scrum to crash over.

“We started well on Saturday and deserved to win the game. We used it as a preseason game and try to run everything or try out new moves. It was good to see new players gel and enjoy the game. We now progress to the next round before the league season starts on the 14th.” commented skipper Ben Wetton.

Team. Wetton, Horne, Trybus (Bushell 40), Perry, Noonan, Le Roux (Ho 50), Williams, Longhurst, Sherriff, Heley, K. O’Shea, O’Callaghan, C. Heley, C. O’ Shea (Bezzer 40), Thompson.

Man of the Match: Dan Longhurst