Romsey 58-10 Ventnor

On a day when many fixtures were frozen off, Romsey‘s superb pitch at Ganger Leisure Centre was deemed fit to play and Romsey’s spectators were treated to a “try fest”!

From the very first whistle Romsey dominated every aspect of play and very quickly scored the opening try. Ventnor were quick out of the blocks and managed to charge down what would have been an easy conversion leaving Romsey with a five point lead.

From the restart the visitors reached Romsey’s 22 yard line but turnover possession resulted in some terrific inter-play by Romsey all the way to the Ventnor try line with a score by Ed Bethel. The difficult conversion was missed so the score after five minutes play stood at 10 : 0.

Romsey’s scrum and lineout were dominant and a forward drive following a line out saw Romsey‘s third unconverted try scored by Alfie Lawrence. This was swiftly followed by another try by Ollie Coburn, which again went unconverted from out wide, giving Romsey a 20 : 0 lead. Romsey continued to pound away a visitors try line with stout Ventnor defence just managing to keep Romsey at bay, at least for a short while. The pressure soon told and Ollie Coburn scored again in the corner; the difficult conversion was successful increasing the score to a mere 27 : 0!

There followed an awesome scrum by Romsey driving forward many many yards and a burst by scrum half Dan Penn-Newman almost yielded a score. Moments later and Newman was not to be denied scoring on the stroke of halftime. The successful conversion gave Romsey a 34 nil lead at half-time.

The second half started in much the same vein with the home forwards dominant and linking superbly with the backs. After winning quick ruck ball Romsey drove forward again with Michael Streicher bursting over for yet another try with the conversion pushing the lead to 41 points. Next it was Dan Penn-Newman’s turn, picking up from a scrum and jinking his way through to score a another superb try. This time the conversion was missed leaving the score at 46 nil.

Completely against the run of play Ventnor finally got into Romsey’s territory, having kicked ahead, and managed to cross the Romsey line for an unconverted consolation try. Romsey immediately counted and a crossfield kick from replacement Ollie Soundy on the Ventnor 22 was pounced on by Ollie Coburn, scoring in the corner for his hat trick and increasing the score to 51 : 5.

With Romsey taking their foot off the gas Ventnor managed to make another rare incursion into the Romsey 22 and were rewarded with another consolation try. This stung Romsey into action again and replacement prop Brad Piper scored Romsey‘s final try with the conversion making the final score 58 : 10.

This was a great performance of forward domination and running rugby by Romsey but to their credit Ventnor continued to complete vigorously until the very end. 

Next week sees Romsey visit Isle of Wight rugby club for what promises to be a close for encounter.