Horsham cup success

The sides will meet twice further in the league this season although with the Kent side just avoiding relegation last year, there will be sterner challenges to be met in London League 2 South East.

The Green and Whites however are nursing their wounds with several injuries, and the side finished the match with only 14 players and a disjointed look having used all of their bench replacements. The medical team will be working overtime to patch up the injured players ready for a difficult encounter with Tunbridge Wells.

“We started well, and were dominant in the first phase, with our scrums and line-outs both strong,” said Horsham coach Nick Stocker. “We raced into a 22-3 lead after 26 minutes but then let them back into the game, when we started to force passes and kick away possession against a good counter-attacking side and our defensive structure was not good.

We were guilty of being lackadaisical with possession and left four tries out there.

I never however felt we were in danger of losing because we generally had the better first phase possession and we were better at the breakdown.

We had a number of knocks in the second half, including captain Paul Talbot, with a slight ankle sprain, and we will know how serious these injuries are in the next few days.”

Declan Nwachukwu opened the scoring on 7 minutes after the ball had been recycled from a dominant scrum, and two minutes later Arun Thompson stole opposition line out ball and after carrying well he popped to Giles Barber for him to score.

Richard Tredgett scored on 26 minutes after a multi-phase attack and then completed his brace in the second half from a driving maul, to remove any prospect of an Ashford fightback and seal the win.

Ashford’s backs combined well for their two tries to open up and outpace the Horsham defence on the counter-attack.

Tom Johnson completed the scoring with two penalties and two conversions and James Johnson and Will Bell each scored a penalty.

Horsham open their league campaign away to strongly fancied Tunbridge Wells on 19 September.

Horsham: Bell; Nwachukwu, Wilde, Ordidge, Harts; Johnson T (Mills 60), Johnson J; Talbot (Brady 28), Lowe, Barber; Tredgett, Green (Whiting 40); Gaynor, Thompson, Gray (Pirt 60)