Horsham RUFC eye strong finish

An end of season fourth place in the league looks to be within reach as a springboard towards a promotion drive next year.

Horsham named an unchanged match squad for the first time this season, as injuries start to abate, and this resurgence in confidence will be tested in the next league fixture away to runaway leaders Maidstone. The margin of victory perhaps slightly flattered Horsham, and Folkestone were unlucky to come away from Coolhurst with nothing.

A beaming Horsham coach Nick Stocker was pleased with what he saw: “I was happy with our strong defence especially in the second half when Folkestone came back into the game. We showed our resilience having been on the back foot for the first fifteen minutes, but we then let go four try scoring opportunities. I’m happy with the four try bonus point win and the effort the side put in however we cannot let teams off the hook and too many scores went begging. We handled the referee well and learned from previous weeks by giving no backchat. I felt that on the whole we won the contact collisions but with ball in hand we were not running from deep enough positions.”

As a result of a clash of colours, Horsham had to play in their black training kit, but this had no adverse effect as they carried on where they left off last week against Park House by attacking in waves from the kick-off but were met with resilient defence from Folkestone.

Jonny Ordidge at centre made hard yards up the middle of the pitch and offloaded to the ever present Rob Clegg in support but the attack was snuffed out. Tyler Aitken then had the opportunity to break out down the right wing but lacked the confidence to go all the way, and having waited for the support to arrive the chance was lost. Scrum half Mark Brandon then launched a speedy counter attack and put Jamie Gibbs away into space who raced down his wing, chipped his man, but the move came to nothing.

The pressure on Folkestone was building but from a five yard scrum under the posts Jonny Whiting spilled the ball under pressure when a score looked certain. Shortly afterwards on 16 minutes the Folkestone centre was yellow carded for killing the ball and Will Bell slotted the resulting penalty to make it 3-0.

Being a man down did not have any obvious effect on Folkestone who were awarded a penalty of their own and Bradley Pearson levelled the scores. A Sam Bell tackle then prevented Folkestone taking the lead and having recycled the ball the away side would have surely scored from the next phase but were pegged back by a forward pass.

As the game ebbed and flowed, strong Folkestone defence nullified break outs by Gibbs and Aitken but then fly half Will Bell varied the play by putting in a long searching kick to the left corner flag. This created the position for Aitken’s try on 35 minutes having been released by Brandon after several phases of Horsham battering the Folkestone try line in the face of resolute defence to make it 8-3.

Folkestone had the chance to peg back Horsham’s lead but missed the kick at goal, and Sam Bell made a long clearance kick which was run back and required an excellent tackle by Gibbs to prevent a score. Horsham then failed to turn their possession into points when Gibbs overran a pass from Ordidge which was judged to be forward, and there were no further scores before half-time.

The Folkestone coach was heard to remark at half-time “all they have is an off-load game”, and ironically in view of what was said, shortly afterwards Sam Bell gathered a long speculative reverse spin pass from Aitken, presumably honed on the shores of Bondi Beach, and showed what a well balanced runner he is by dancing through several Folkestone tackles in a balletic fashion to create a strong attacking position for Horsham. Captain Matt Brown was not prepared to eschew the confrontation and made a double tackle but then the momentum was lost when Paul Talbot was sin-binned for an illegal hit at the breakdown.

On 51 minutes a Folkestone player then tried an inexplicable chip, which was gathered by Rob Grantham-Hill standing right in front of him, and showed a turn of pace to race in from 30 yards to score under the posts. Will Bell converted to make the score 15-3.

Substitute prop Neal Holden went on a surging run, but the result was never totally secure from a Horsham standpoint as Folkestone kept up the pressure and it required resolute tackles from Iain Fisher, Will Bell and Aitken to stem the attacking waves. Handling errors from both sides prevented any further scores until on 73 minutes Brown made a double tackle to prevent a Folkestone break-out and from the ensuing five yard line-out, the opposition threw straight to a surprised Simon Matterface, and the Horsham pack drove over his second row colleague Ryan Grover to score.

Three minutes later Richard Bowen pulled a try back when the Folkestone left winger outflanked the Horsham defence and cap a fine game by racing into the corner.

But there was still time for Horsham to secure the bonus point win when Brown went over for the fourth try as he danced through the Folkestone defence to score under the posts, after a good offload by young substitute fly-half Aled Price and good hands by the Horsham three quarters to seal the win 25-8. A delighted captain Brown said after the game: “I felt that this was good performance and we exercised control throughout. Our defence was excellent and we strangled the life out of them.”

Horsham: Talbot, Grantham-Hill (Penston 59), Barber (Holden 40); Grover, Matterface; Fisher, Clegg , Whiting; Brandon, W Bell (Price 66); Brown (capt), Ordidge; Aitken, Gibbs; S Bell.