Late flurry is too little, too late, as Hartpury lose to Richmond
By Rhys Anderson & Luke Jarmyn, at Richmond Athletic Ground (RAG)
HARTPURY RFC scored two late tries to rattle Richmond’s nerves, but it was not enough to overturn the Surrey side’s commanding lead as Mark Cornwell’s side suffered their third away defeat in a row on Friday night.
Fullback Alex Morgan scored two tries in the final ten minutes, with scrum-half Oscar Lennon converting one to ensure the late comeback earned Hartpury an important losing bonus point and gave the travelling fans something to enjoy in an otherwise underwhelming performance under the lights at the fabled historic ground.
Hartpury entered the evening as favourites despite their poor form on the road with recent losses to Ealing and Bedford, with hopes that they could make it three wins from four games after the previous weeks 36-31 dispatching of Coventry.
Meanwhile Richmond came into the fixture sitting 12th in the 14-team Champ table, with their recent win at basement side Cambridge ending a four-game losing run that went back to victory over Chinnor on the opening day of the season.
The pitch at the RAG dealt well with a day full of rain brought on by Storm Claudia, as the warm up showed the ball skimming off the damp surface while the ground proved not too heavy to stop free-flowing rugby.
Hartpury fly-half Harry Bazalgette kicked off towards the gold club end of the ground and the game started slowly in terms of scoring, but the first quarter-of-an-hour flew by. The all-reds had the lion share of the ball, but couldn’t convert pressure into points despite winning their 10 lineouts in the first 40 minutes.
Bazalgette caused problems for the hosts back three with his spiralling bomb kicks proving tricky to deal with at the best of times, but under the lights on a cold, misty November evening, the task was even more difficult.
Playing in their traditional gold, red and black hoops, Richmond thought they were going to open the scoring mere moments before they finally ended up doing so as left-wing Josh Addams looked through on the far side if not for a last-ditch challenge and some excellent rucking, resulting in a turnover from ‘pury second-row Dale Lemon.
Richmond finally crossed the whitewash on the half-hour mark as scrum-half Luc Jones picked the ball up at the base of a ruck right by Hartpury’s line, and spotted a gap to plant the ball between the posts at the RAG’s car park end.
Richmond fullback Callum Grieve’s successful conversion made it 7-0 at half-time in a low-scoring, back-and-forth, tactical affair.
The wait for points in the second period was nowhere near as long, only eight minutes in fact, as the Surrey-side opted to add another three through Grieve’s boot after winning a penalty for offside by Hartpury’s try line, only minutes after he missed a 45-metre attempt.
Less than two minutes later the hosts scored their second try of the game through Addams, who picked up a loose ball on the halfway line and sprinted over the line, carrying the ball between the posts for a solo effort while making it a much simpler conversion, which Grieve subsequently converted.
Mark Cornwell emptied most of Hartpury’s bench searching for a way back into the game in the last half-hour.
It helped pile the pressure onto Richmond, and Rob Powell’s side finally showed a chink in their armour as fly-half Jason Baggott was sin-binned on the 70th minute for a deliberate knock-on, just as it looked like Hartpury were about to get the ball to explosive left winger Ollie Holliday midway into the Richmond half.
Eventually with just shy of 10 minutes remaining fullback Alex Morgan finished off a team move that saw the ball go through the hands of several players as ‘pury transitioned from the left wing over to the right where the pace and acceleration of Morgan saw him dive across the try line.
Scrum-half Ollie Lennon’s took on goalkicker duties after Bazalgette’s substitution and superbly bent the conversion from the right sideline to narrow Richmond’s lead to only 10 points with roughly seven minutes left on the clock when play resumed.
Hartpury smelt blood and kept attacking but it took until there was just 50 second left on the clock when Morgan broke through to score his second try of the game. This time it was a solo effort, bouncing three defenders off him with brute strength before finishing again in the right corner.
With the rush to get the game back underway, Lennon attempted a drop goal conversion that unfortunately flew to the left of the uprights.
The final play of the game was ‘pury looking for another try through Richmond defence and the play continued well past the 80th minute mark with the clock in the red.
Phase after phase went by, mostly from inside their own 22-metre area, before a line-break took Hartpury towards the middle of Richmond’s half.
Unfortunately, the Gloucestershire side lost yardage back into their own half, and one final Hail Mary pass out to the left wing was half-intercepted, knocked on and the ball fell out of play to end the game with Richmond winning 17-12, earned their first back-to-back wins of the season.
Hartpury’s away-form continues to be a concern with the defeat making it three away losses in a row, with their only win away from the 4ED Hartpury Stadium being the one-point opening day victory over Cornish Pirates.
Stats:
|
Richmond FC |
|
Hartpury RFC |
|
9 |
Penalties conceded |
8 |
|
9 |
Line-outs won |
15 |
|
6 |
Line-outs lost |
4 |
|
4 |
Scrums won |
6 |
|
0 |
Scrums lost |
1 |
|
1 |
Sin bins |
1 |
|
0 |
Red cards |
0 |
Teams:
Richmond FC: Callum Grieve, Chidera Obonna, Ronnie Du Randt, Tololima Savaiinaea (Sam Dardis 66), Josh Addams (Lewis Dennett 80), Jason Baggott, Luc Jones (C) (Alex Schwarz 64); Barnaby Vaughan (Chris Freeman 66), Harry Hocking (Will Goffey 51), Luke Spring (Jimmy Litchfield 68), Jake Monson, George Nugent (Campbell Gray 78), Miles Wakeling (Luke Frost 62), Jared Cardew (Luke Frost 17-23), Sam Pim
Tries: Luc Jones 31, Josh Addams 50
Conversions: Callum Grieve 32, 51
Penalties: Callum Grieve 49
Sin Bin: Jason Baggott 70
Hartpury RFC: Alex Morgan, Brad Denty (Haydn Lewis 64), Robbie Smith, Ollie Allsopp, Ollie Holliday, Harry Bazalgette (Cai Gealy 41), Oscar Lennon; Harrison Bellamy (Tom Hill 66), Ethan Hunt (CC) (Will Crane 49), Oliver Minnis (Alex Gibson 62), Dale Lemon, Jack Davies (CC) (Dan Owen 78), Josh Grey (Jarrod Hayler 49), Ellis Hart, Tom Worts (Freddie Ogden-Metherell 73)
Tries: Alex Morgan 71, 79
Conversions: Oscar Lennon 72
Sin Bin: Oscar Lennon 53
Referee: Richard Gordon (RFU)
Attendance: 750
Half-Time: 7-0 (to Richmond FC)
Star Players: Josh Addams (Richmond FC) / Dale Lemon (Hartpury RFC)
Reaction:
Hartpury’s players ‘never did any’ of their game-plan
By Rhys Anderson & Luke Jarmyn, at Richmond Athletic Ground (RAG)
DISAPPOINTED and disgruntled faces all round took to Hartpury RFC’s coach for a long journey back to Gloucestershire which wouldn’t see the team get home until beyond midnight.
Summing up, Hartpury RFC’s head of performance Martin Haag said: “I think we showed our best rugby with 10 to 15 minutes to go.“In the first-half we didn’t execute any of the things we talked about and we played into Richmond’s hands, they’re a really solid team.
“Richmond defended in the right areas, so hats off to them. But for us, we had a gameplan and never did any of it.
“It shows you that when you are 5 per cent off in this league, anyone can beat you, and fair play to Richmond, they are a good team, coming off the back of a good win last week and they fronted up.”
Despite the defeat, Haag believes it was lucky the team was playing away, as the fixture would have been at risk of being called off due to the yellow weather warning amid Storm Claudia’s rain.
He added: “If we’d have played in Gloucestershire, the conditions would have been a lot worse than this.
“The pitch was in great nick, the ball was dewy but no excuses at the end of the day, we didn’t execute the gameplan.
“It was still really dewy, so you need extra skill and extra time on the ball and both teams probably didn’t get that which is why there were a lot of mistakes.
“At the end of the day, I would rather us have gone out there, like we did in the last 10 minutes and tried to play a bit of rugby than just keep kicking it away, going nowhere and playing into Richmond’s hands.”
While there were positives, Haag feels a lack of being clinical in front of the try line proved costly.
He continued: “We had a number of opportunities close to their line, but didn’t score and that’s the difference between winning and losing against a good team.
“We suddenly moved the ball a lot better in the last 10 minutes, we scored one good try, and it was always going to be difficult from the kick off at the end.
“You can’t win a game of rugby by keep kicking the ball away, and that’s what we did tonight, and we’ll all have a look at ourselves, the coaches will have a look at ourselves and figure out what we can do better next time.
“We’ve got a week off, it’s difficult for both teams when your part time, the boys can have a week off, have a lie in, go to work, do their thing and then we’ll come back ready to go.”
Hartpury RFC’s star player, lock Dale Lemon believes the team needs to look inwards rather than find excuses.
He said: “Firstly, credit to Richmond, they were up for it right from the start and you could see from the whistle that they wanted it more.
“We were slow out of the blocks and their energy was high, especially as a pack, I think we let the side down in the first half, but it’s one of those that we’re going to have to eat and move on.
“I’d love to be able to blame it on the storm, but they also have to deal with the conditions too, around the park we were just off it.”
In terms of the late comeback and the squads feeling afterwards with the team now having a week off before their next Champ clash, he added: “It was too little too late, the first half was too slow, we had a good talking too and with some of the penalties in the second half, the intent was there, I saw a little lift in the boys, but they hung in there for the full 80.
“I’d say they surprised us, they were up for it, but also we just expected it to happen, they showed us that we have to be switched on.
“We just had a chat there in the huddle; it’s really important that the boys’ recharge, do what they’ve got to do personally, whether that’s a complete week off, hit the gym, whatever each player needs to do we’ve just got to be ready to put a performance in at Ampthill away.
“It’ll be rest for me, I’m getting too old for that. It’ll be a whole week off, but it’s as much a mental recharge as it is a physical one, we’ve had a long block, six or seven games on the bounce, so take a break from rugby and come back firing.”
