Horsham complete double over Pulborough to remain top

The sides now look forward to meeting again in the quarter final of the Bob Rogers Sussex Cup on 24 January.

The bonus point win ensured that the Green and Whites maintain their narrow one point lead from Dartfordians at the top of London 3 South East ahead of their looming showdown at Coolhurst on 17 January. Whilst both sides will be aware of the importance of the game with title credentials on the line, they also know that a margin of error has opened up in the promotion stakes because a further fifteen point gap has opened up with third placed Old Dunstonians.

Johnson, who has yet to experience defeat in fifteen competitive matches playing for Horsham scored 20 points in the victory, including two tries. He looked also to be on his way to completing a 100% kicking return, including several conversions from close to the touchline, but his final attempt was controversially adjudged to have sailed wide.

Pulborough captain, Seth Wise told a tale of two halves. “That’s the best forty minutes of rugby anybody has played against us all season. Horsham blew us away” observed Wise. “But in the second half they were just average.”

Horsham totally dominated the first half, playing with a strong wind at their backs, and had achieved their first objective of scoring four tries before the break, but straight from the restart a Pulborough player was injured and after a five minute delay as a precaution against moving him, the game continued on a nearby pitch.

Whether it was the half time break, the injury delay or switching off thinking the game was already won, Horsham did not display the same intensity in the second half.

Horsham’s head coach Nick Stocker was delighted with the performance. “The Christmas festivities had an effect and the guys went off the boil and lacked cohesion as the game went on. As a local derby this was a potential banana skin which we had to navigate at Christmas time.

We were missing a number of key players but played some good rugby in the first half before we took our foot off the gas however we showed that we can score from different areas.”

Tredgett burst through several tackles and offloaded to Ben Pirt for Horsham’s first try. Tredgett again made the hard yards for Horsham’s second, then Sean Tuhakaraina made the incision through the Pulborough defensive line which was finished off by Johnson.

On 23 minutes Johnny Ordidge straightened the line to burst through a gap in the defence on the half way line, shrugged off a couple of attempted tackles and side stepped the full back to score under the posts.

At this point Pulborough had not yet touched the ball in the Horsham half, but after Jordan Smith had fielded the kick off and made some good ground the visitors were penalised for not releasing. Pulborough took the penalty quickly and kicked through as Horsham were slow to realign and Ollie Coombe-Tennant won the race to the touchdown and score totally against the run of play.

Horsham responded by hammering away at the Pulborough try line which drew a sin bin offence for a deliberate knock forward and on the stroke of half time Jamie Gibbs scored his tenth try of the season following slick handling along the three quarter line to take a 28-7 lead into the break.

With the game in the bag, Horsham failed to attain the heights of the first half and the second period was more even.

Tom Hoey kicked a penalty when Horsham were penalised for not releasing then Johnson countered by selling a dummy and make a twenty yard break and offload to the supporting Tuhakaraina who coasted through to the line.

Pulborough came back when Coombe-Tennant scored off a powerful driving maul then on 75 minutes Gibbs made a break up the wing and when he was tackled, Ordidge was first to the loose ball to feed Johnson to score his second try.

There was still time for Pulborough to come back and for Coombe-Tennant to score his third try from a catch and drive off a line out having kicked to the corner.

Horsham’s next game is away to Watford based Fullerians on 3 January in the Third Round of the Senior Vase.

Horsham: W Bell, Gibbs, Tuhakaraina, Ordidge, Whiting; Johnson, Rush (Mills 52); Talbot (capt), Fisher (Stone 64), Barber; Green, Goward; Smith, Pirt (Price 40), Tredgett