Barking skipper Craig Ratford offloads to Jay Udo-Udoma in Saturday's heavy defeat. Pic: Kevin Foley.

National Two South: Barking 3 Henley Hawks 85

It was always expected to be a tough encounter for bottom side Barking, but National Two South league leaders Henley Hawks ran riot against Dean Cutting’s side on Saturday.

In total, Henley scored 13 tries in the victory, while Barking only had a penalty from club captain Craig Ratford to show for their efforts.

Cutting has been able to bring back a former face to the club in the shape of winger Stephen Hihetah, who spent a spell at Goresbrook last season, with the former London Scottish man on the replacements’ bench.

In fact, the hosts went into the lead when Ratford scored the penalty in the opening minute of the match, but the league leaders soon got into full flow at Gale Street.

Liam O’Neil went over for the first Hawks try of the encounter as he finished off a move wide on the left with nine minutes on the clock and James Comben slotted over the first of 10 conversions in a 25-point haul for the fly-half.

Followed

That was then followed by Xavier Andre’s effort as he scored on the opposite flank before Danny Wells added a third for a 21-3 lead with 20 minutes on the clock.

Neil Baggett’s 50-metre sprint resulted in fellow centre Martin Nutt touching down before Jack Shaylor notched up the fifth try before half-time and put the Hawks into a 33-3 lead at the break.

Matt Payne scored the first after the interval before front row replacements James Hadfield and Alex Penny added to the tally in as many minutes.

Another replacement, Dave Clements, stormed over with 15 minutes remaining only for Shaylor to add his second after a fine run.

Penny doubled his try tally for the afternoon and Baggett added another on his return to the first team as they racked up the points.

Barking, to their credit, continued to plug away and almost scored a try in the closing stages, but Comben rounded off his highly-successful afternoon with an individual effort from fully 75m out, in the penultimate minute, to seal the win.

Barking: Hunter, Solanke-Caulker, Lowe, Udo-Udoma, Foster, Ratford, Fouracre, N John, McFarlane, S John, Fox, James-Nicholls, Kearsey, M Anderson, O’Toole. Replacements: R Anderson, Ambrose, Peasnall, Hihetah, Honey.