Cup glory anchored for another year

With the side disrupted by injuries and unavailability this was always going to be a difficult fixture for the Green and Whites, however Horsham faded after a bright start having been camped in the Gillingham half for the first twenty minutes, and were unable to find a way through a well organised defence.

After good work at the breakdown by Matt Goodsir and Ben Pirt, a penalty was awarded but Matt Brown missed his kick at goal, and then minutes later he opted to tap and go in front of the posts but Horsham could not find a way through the Gillingham defence. With a lack of passing precision half chances were not capitalised upon and on 22 minutes Gillingham outflanked the Horsham defence which had become too narrow to score in the corner.

On 31 minutes the Gillingham Number 8 picked up from the back of the scrum to brush off weak tackling to run in from 25 yards and then Horsham did not help themselves by failing to kick 10 yards from the restart and the pressure was back on again.

A Goodsir interception and kick upfield offered relief but the counter attack was nullified due to the support not being quick enough. With Nick Bell covering every blade of grass on the pitch and tackling himself to a standstill and Lee Taylor making sniping runs when the opportunity presented, Horsham reached half-time with the score unchanged at 12-0 down.

Due to Pirt and Jonny Goward being off the field due to injury, Horsham were unsettled and with Gillingham’s strong runners punching holes, they extended their lead to 17-0 early in the second half.

Horsham’s fight back then started when after rolling maul Paul Talbot was stopped just short of the line, the ball went wide and George Philip crossed to score after a Brown offload.

Horsham’s defence was sliced open too easily as Gillingham scored again, but then the Green and Whites bounced back when Goodsir made a break and after he was stopped, a wide pass by Jonny Ordidge put Richard Brooker into space to score in the corner which Brown converted from the touchline with ten minutes remaining.

Unfortunately for Horsham, who still needed to score twice to overhaul Gillingham’s lead, they could not maintain the pressure and Anchorians responded immediately to score under the posts following poor tackling and put the game beyond Horsham’s reach.

Horsham coach Richard Bell said “I am extremely disappointed and thought today we showed a lack of cohesion. We were good at going through the phases for the first 15-20 minutes but then injuries started to take their toll.

We showed a lack of intensity, missed tackles cost us with individuals not taking responsibility and our line-out didn’t function. Four of their five tries were from our own errors and they only created one themselves off a rolling maul.

We were hampered by injuries with key backs missing and had no backs replacement. On the positive side we scored two well worked tries, going through the phases and running from depth but we did not do enough of this for the full 80 minutes.

My man of the match is Paul Talbot for the amount of tackles he put in, run a close second by Ryan Grover for the shift he put in.

Overall I am disappointed because I thought we were bullied and not tough enough.”

Horsham’s next game is in the league at home to Dartfordians on Saturday November 23.

Horsham: Talbot (capt), Grantham-Hill, Barber (Barber 40); Grover, Goward; Pirt (Smith 29), Bell, Clarke; Rush, Goodsir; Brooker, Brown, Ordidge, Taylor; Philip