Rampant Counts end home League fixtures in style

The Counts looked shaky in the opening 15 minutes with passes being misdirected or dropped and tackles missed. During this opening period, it was Emanuel who looked the more incisive team with full-back Matt Cormack and centre Adam Stroud proving particularly difficult to contain. However, Walcountians slowly began to edge their way back into the match and the turning point came in the 18th minute when burly hooker James Ford crashed over for a try after acting as first receiver for the ball after it was recycled from a ruck on the Emanuel line.
From then on, Walcountians dominated the match. The Walcountians pack, solidly anchored by props Jonny Evans and Paul Harris, totally annihilated their Emanuel counterparts in the set scrums while driving runs by Evans, skipper Will Thornton and No8 Joe Henderson relentlessly drove Walcountians forward. It took the Counts just another seven minutes to add their second try when a well-worked threequarter move set explosive winger Dom Barnaby up to break three attempted tackles and go over.

From then on, the floodgates opened. Fly-half Liam Cleary, who landed six conversions in the absence of regular kicker Ross Norton, scored the third in the 31st minute by going over in the left-hand corner. In the 35th minute, Walcountians’ other winger, Marvin Fletcher-Rogers, scored his first try of the day with a spectacular break from his own half. The 37th minute saw centre Dany Abou-Zeid finish off a textbook threequarter move started when the ball was recycled form a ruck, and Fletcher-Rogers scored his second try of the day and his sixth in just nine appearances after returning from injury to finish off a counter-attack led by Jonny Evans and Joe Henderson.

The one-way traffic continued in the second half. After just five minutes, James Ford scored his second try of the day with a drive from short range. This was followed by three more tries in a ten-minute spell. Dom Barnaby scored his second try in the 15th minute after the Counts pack won a scrum and scrum-half Seb Chmielinski put him away on the blind side. Full-back Dharshan Vadivelu was next to score in the 18th minute when he broke from halfway and eluded three tackles on the way to touching down. The third try was one of the most spectacular seen as it began when Dom Barnaby brought down Emanuel full-back Matt Cormack when he was on course to score after intercepting a pass. This led to a turnover and counter-attack by the Counts, from which keystone forward Dom Bell punched a hole in the Emanuel defene to put supporting flanker Rob Fleming in for a try.

In the final ten minutes, Marvin Fletcher-Rogers was replaced by Andy Togbolah to prevent the recurrence of the hamstring injury which kept him out for several games. Togbolah was to prove his worth by stopping a certain try by Emanuel centre Adam Stroud as Emanuel launched a late rally to try and obtain some consolation. In the 31st minute, Emanuel finally broke through when centre Zak Peacock slalomed his way through the Walcountians’ defence to score a converted try.

This however stung Walcountians back into action and they finished the match with three more tries as they had too much pace and precision for the visitors to cope with. The first, in the 35th minute saw Dharshan Vadivelu score his second try of the day when Will Thornton won a lineout with a towering leap and launched a threequarter move which the elusive Walcountians full-back finished off. Two minutes later, Seb Chmielinski scored his twelfth try of the season when he ran onto an offload from Jonny Evans and left the Emanuel defence in his wake. And in the final minute, Dom Barnaby completed a hat trick of tries by bursting onto an offload and holding off an attempted tackle as he went over.

Walcountians remain in fourth place in London League 3 South West, 18 points clear of fifth-placed Andover but eight points adrift of second and third-placed Warlingham and Petersfield. Next Saturday, the Counts play their final League match when they travel to Alton. Kick-off at Alton’s Anstey Park ground is at 3pm.

Old Walcountians: Vadivelu, Fletcher-Rogers, Abou-Zeid, Bateman, Barnaby, Cleary, Chmielinski, Evans, Ford, Harris, Thornton, Bell, Lawrence, Fleming, Henderson.

Subs:- Camakamma, Togbolah, Wrightson.