Crowborough 43-16 Horsham

The Green and Whites played with the wind at their backs in the first half and stunned the more fancied Crowborough side with the intensity of their play. Although Billy Ropiha went over to score for Crowborough in the right hand corner after six minutes, it was to be their last score until late in the half as Horsham applied concerted pressure.

Two minutes later Matt Goodsir crossed the line to level the scores after a surging run by Jonathan Whiting followed by good inter-passing between the three-quarters creating the position for Goodsir to crash over. Crowborough immediately responded and it required a Sam Bell tackle to cut down the fly-half who looked certain to score, followed shortly afterwards by a fine a tackle from Tyler Aitken to snuff out another attack.

Captain Matt Brown, appeared to have learned the lesson of previous weeks to come away from a period of territorial dominance with points on the board by eschewing the chance to run penalties and instead kick at goal. Horsham were awarded four penalties in a period of ten minutes and Brown slotted the first penalty with the wind behind him with a fine strike from 35 yards, which he followed up shortly afterwards with a long range booming kick from a wider position 40 yards out. The Crowborough supporters were stunned to see Horsham take an 11-5 lead and although two other long range strikes at goal did not find their mark, Brown showed the variety to his game by making an excellent break followed by grubber kick which bounced up nicely for the chasing Joe Wilde to hold but he was tackled before he could reach the try line.

Goodsir was controlling the game well from half-back and Alex Brew was making sniping runs but on 30 minutes Crowborough showed the clinical precision required at this level by scoring two tries in three minutes when after Tom Nicoll out sprinted the Horsham cover to score, he added his second after Fred Bowles was able to gather his own clearance kick uncontested and release Nicoll.

A yellow card to a Crowborough player for repeatedly coming in at the side of the maul did not stem the tide and half time arrived with Horsham 17-11 down.

In the second half Horsham’s level of commitment started to drop and tackles started to be missed, possibly because of a gap in fitness levels, as Crowborough added further tries from Ben Martyn, a brace for Matt Eyres and a third for Nicoll.

There was still time for Horsham substitute prop Alan Jones to pounce on a loose ball and score a consolation try and put a more respectable gloss on the result. This weekend Horsham welcome Pulborough for their penultimate league game of the season, in what is bound to be a well supported and keenly contested derby match.

Horsham coach Nick Stocker was upbeat after the game: “We were always going to be underdogs against a side riding high in the league above. In the first half we bullied them and dominated them with our physicality. We attacked hard and contested the breakdown and although we knew that they had a cutting edge through their centres and back three, we cut down their space and nullified their threat. We had the right attitude to make the big hits through our scramble defence and particular mention should go to Aaron Thompson, who shut down the space available to their dangerous centre Billy Ropiha, and forced him into errors. I have nominated Sam Bell and Matt Redmayne, upon his return to the first team after injury, as joint man of the match for the quality of their defensive work. Unfortunately in the second half our level of performance dropped off as we started to run out of gas with the level of effort required to contain quality opposition. I’m sick to death with being flattered with comments such as “how can your side only be mid-table with a performance like that”. Overall I am very proud with the level of commitment and how we worked very hard to execute the game plan but we have to generate a level of consistency and cohesiveness. We have a core of players who can play at this higher level but we have to start performing week in week out.”