Dagenham Post Article from Tring Match

Barking head coach Ollie Smith praised his side’s endeavour following a 91-0 loss at leaders Tring in London One North.

The Gale Street club conceded the first of 13 tries inside the first minute and were 46-0 down at half time.

The visitors continued to plug away in the second half, but were still unable to find a try.

However, Smith was pleased with their efforts against a Tring side which has won every game so far this season.

“Tring are an exceptional side and given their results leading up to facing us, we knew it was always going to be tough,” said Smith.

“We knew that is was a game that it would be hard for us to win, no matter how well we played, so we went back to asking the players to improve from the previous week.

“Against Old Priorians, we were off the boil, but we got stuck into Tring and played well in parts.

“We fought until the end and we were unlucky not to score a couple of tries.”

Smith believes the huge scoreline between the sides was down to the quality the two sides possess.

While Barking are giving game time to youngsters such as Charlie Fatoma, Tring fielded players Smith believes are too good to stay in London One North.

“They have some good wingers who could be playing at a level a lot higer than this, whereas we have someone like Conrad Nicholau who is still adapting to men’s rugby and was probably dragged into the sport in PE at school,” he added.

“That was the mismatch there was in terms of what each team had, but we kept at it.

“We played well and I suppose the only frustration is that we didn’t score a try against the league leaders.”

And unsurprisingly after such a loss, Smith believes Barking faced the best side in the division when they made the trip to Tring last weekend.

“If Tring don’t go up, they’ve messed around because they have so much quality,” he added.

“We are two clubs at different stages in our development.

“They’ve got a squad that’s been together for a few years and have 30-40 to pick from, whereas we have a lot less than that to choose from.”