Revenge against Winchester

Despite leaving it late in the game to secure victory Horsham put in a strong performance against London 3 South West side Winchester on Saturday. Winchester are currently second in their legaue with six wins from seven games, so it was always going to be a tough fixture.

Owing to your correspondant taking a bit of a bang to the old noggin recollections are a bit hazy, but why let that get in the way of a good story?

Horsham went ahead within the first minute after a sweeping attack from the kick off took play up the field, rsulting in a well-struck Matt Goodsir penalty. Can't remember what it was for, so I'm going to guess that Winchester made a disparaging comment about the referee's hairstyle. Shameful.

With the players trotting back to the halfway line the home supporters prepared themselves for the points-fest that was surely to follow. Ahem.

One can only assume that both captains then reached some kind of mutual agreement that what the rest of the first half really needed was as few points as possible. Recent events in cricket have shown that sportsmen are not beyond petty gain, and with two powerhouses of rugby on the pitch who knows whether shadowy underworld figures were not running some kind of huge spot-fixing scam using the players as innocent pawns?

Either that or both teams were just having one of those days. Despite the lion's share of possession for the first half Winchester were struggling to break the Horsham defensive line, generally making progress up the pitch through the accurate boot of theit fly half.

When Horsham did have possession breaks were made, but then somehow contrived to make a complete pig's ear of them at the death. Woes were compounded by the loss of flanker Seth Wise to a gammy ankle. Clearly his impending 30th and worries over the inevitable loss of hair and youthful complexion were weighing on his mind, otherwise he would have watched where he was putting his foot. Tom Hedley stepped up to the mark for his senior league debut.

The crowd on the touchline, many of whom had settled down for a winter's nap, were briefly roused just before half time when Horhsam conceded a penalty in front of the posts. Again the exact nature of the felony escapes me, but whatever it may have been it was quite clearly unjustified and the ref was picking on us. Winchester slotted the penalty to make the score at the break 3-3. Riveting stuff.

The second half was marginally more interesting, mainly because it had some tries in it. Winchester's man of the match flanker was sin binned for being a naughty boy at the breakdown, and Horsham made use of the overlap to put pressure on. From a series of close drives on the Winchester line any number of people could have scored, but seeing as Neal Holden had been whinging so much about not getting on the score sheet we thought it best to let him do it. Such a diva. 8-3 Horsham.

Sam Rice was also carried off (again) after doing something unpleasant to his knee (again). We wish him a speedy recovery (again).

Winchester were briefly down to 13 men when their hooker was sin binned for hoofing the ball at flanker Johnny in a bit of a temper tantrum. A little harsh perhaps, but on the plus side it was one of the more comical yellow cards seen on this pitch.

Once again taking advantage of the numbers Horsham swung the ball wide, and greedy fullback Jamie Gibbs tripped over the line to score. Goodsir nailed the conversion to make it 15-3.

In the last 5 minutes Winchester came back at Horsham with a vengeance, hammering the home side's line until the gap fnally opened and their flanker scored under the posts. Final score 15-10.

Man of the match went to debutant Johnny after a powerful display on the back row, and DOTD went to Liam for the intercepted pass that nearly gave Winchester an early try.

Horsham now await the draw for the next round of the cup. How very exciting!