Pain for Old Midwives at birth of new season

Only two days after his appointment as 1st XV captain for the season, Paul Talbot lead a powerful forward effort from the outset to lay the foundation for the three-quarters to put on a display of clinical running rugby in perfect handling conditions.

The pattern of the game was soon established with a succession of scrums where the Old Mid-Whitgiftians pack was being driven back at a rate of knots, and after four minutes Jonny Ordidge crossed the line to score after good inter passing with Rob Grantham-Hill and the try was converted by Aled Price.

Sam Bell then doubled the score when taking an inside pass from Will Johnson after he had used his pace to carve open the defence.

The try of the half came after sixteen minutes when Jamie Gibbs fired a long pass out left to Joe Wilde on the half way line who straightened up to create the position for Gibbs to loop round and use his speed to outstrip the covering defence and score in the left corner.

At this point Horsham were scoring at more than a point a minute and Johnson scored in the corner after Ordidge had straightened the line to prevent the drift defence.

Gibbs added another try after a Johnson break following a screen move and with the Horsham back row outstanding in covering every blade of grass, man of the match Nick Bell made a powerful tackle to dislodge the ball and create the attacking position for Arun Thompson to score following Price reacting first to another loose ball, and Horsham turned around at half-time 36-0 up.

Horsham rang the changes at the break to use their full bench replacements and carried on where they left off when an outside break by Sam Bell following some good handling by the backs lead to a Wilde try, Johnson added his second following a break by Iain Fisher, and then Sam Bell scored after good work by Ordidge.

Old Mid-Whitgiftians however never gave up looking threatening on occasion, and it was only Horsham’s Number 8 Guy Bateman, showing tremendous athleticism, who ran back 25 yards to make a cover tackle that prevented a certain score.

Due to the constant pressure on the Old Mid-Whitgiftians pack, for the last 20 minutes the scrums were uncontested and the Horsham back line continued their clinical display with both Gibbs and Sam Bell using their pace to complete their hat-tricks with long range efforts and then Ordidge completed the scoring with a lung bursting effort from the half way line. Aled Price converted six of the twelve tries.

A clearly delighted Horsham coach Nick Stocker said: “I am especially pleased with the scrum, commitment and work-rate today. We were relentless in our desire to turn the screw and showed a competitive edge throughout which did not slacken even when the game was won and went to uncontested scrums.

Our backs showed good lines of running, scored some good tries and we look well set up for the season ahead. Sam Bell and Ben Pirt showed their versatility by playing out of position, we controlled the contact area and we recycled the ball well.

We showed excellent ball skills, the forwards and backs combined well and today’s performance bodes well for the future”.

The first league game of the season is at home to newly promoted Burgess Hill on Saturday 14th September with kick-off at 3:00pm.