Brave Horsham go down against the champions

Tunbridge Wells showed why they champions of London 2 South East with a powerful display to defeat a spirited Horsham team. The Kent side have their final league game to play next week against Crowborough followed by the knock out champions of northern England, St Benedicts from Cumbria, in the final of the Intermediate Cup at Twickenham to crown an historic unbeaten season.

Alex Maynard opened the scoring for Tunbridge Wells following a couple of missed tackles and then Lee Campion chipped over the top and after a fortunate bounce taking the defence out of the game Hayden Pope followed up to gather and score under the posts.
From the restart Arun Thompson charged down Chaz Spence’s clearance kick to score which was converted by Tom Johnson and after 13 minutes Horsham trailed 12-7.

Good handling and support play lead to a try for Charlie Harding but minutes later pressure by Mike Watts at the base of the ruck forced a handling error from Spence and Jonny Whiting was the first to react and floated a lovely overhead pass to Kyle Fairs who made a show and go and then crashed through his man to score.

Fred Tila for Tunbridge Wells broke through the midfield to create the attacking position for a scrum, which was surprisingly allowed to stand, even though it had wheeled 180 degrees, and fly half Harding threw out a long cut out pass to Campion who crossed to score unopposed.

Some fine short side handling in attack lead to Johnny Ordidge putting Watts away to score to narrow the deficit to 24-17.
Several pick and goes result in a further try for Tunbridge Wells from Tone Vaigafa.

This was shortly followed by a mistake at the base of the breakdown upon which Spence immediately capitalised by kicking on and racing through to ground over the try line. Tunbridge Wells went into the break leading 36-17 and in a remarkably open game nine tries had been scored in 40 minutes.

Horsham defended resolutely in the second half. Campion scored his second try early on and although the Green and Whites held their line for the next thirty minutes, late scores for Spence and Vaigafa put a gloss on proceedings for Tunbridge Wells.

Horsham head coach Nick Stocker said: “The real difference between the two sides is that in the tackle we were too passive and let them come on to us rather than knock them over, whereas with the ball we got they matched us and slowed us down.
On the whole our set piece was good and we scored three quality tries in the first half. The boys held their own against a very good side but the two tries we conceded just before half time were real killers.

We didn’t score any points after 30 minutes because we didn’t get any ball. Tunbridge Wells maintained possession very well and they were better conditioned and more athletic than us.

It was a good show and go for Kyle Fairs to power over for his try, and good handling lead to the try for Mike Watts. Ollie Harcus did a great job in stepping up at loose head prop, Joe Wilde showed a good injection of pace when he came on, and Declan did well with limited ball. Arun Thompson was his usual vibrant self, making tackle after tackle.

Overall it was disappointing but eight of our league defeats this year have been by less than a score so the challenge for next season is to turn them into wins and our league position would look a lot healthier.”

Horsham: Bell; Watts, Ordidge (Wilde), Johnson J, Nwachukwu; Johnson T (capt), Mills; Harcus (Stone), Fisher, Fairs (Barber); Clarkson, Whiting; Smith, Thompson, Gray