Horsham enjoy comfortable friendly win at Lewes

Lewes started well and enjoyed the better of the exchanges in the first 10 min but failed to put any points on the board for all their possession. Horsham defended well during this period with good discipline at the breakdown. However, the pack slowly started to win some good ball and after a sustained period of pressure in the Lewes 22m zone Robin Holt drove over from 3m to open the scoring.

Soon after it was 12-0 as Cameron Allan took a quick tap in the shadow of the Horsham posts and quick hands released Matt Lane-Miller who raced in from 65m. This brought the end to a well contested first half.

Again, good quick thinking from Cam Allan now playing at outside half put in a delicate chip over the Lewes defense which they failed to deal with properly and the ball bounced back to Cam to finish off under the posts.

At 19-0 Lewes were in danger of being overrun but to their credit they came back with a try of their own and a superb touchline conversion gave them seven well deserved points.

Jerome Downey (now playing flanker) added another after some sustained Horsham pressure and then, from the kick off came the try of the match. The kick off was fielded by Michael Turner who released Robin Holt down the wing, and great sympathetic pass found Blaisé Salle steaming up in support and another great offload found Michael again who drove deep into the Lewes 22m and the fantastic move was finished off by Ben Higgs for his first try that I can remember. A try right out of the top draw from the forwards.

Joey Walker finished the scoring for Horsham with a trademark snipe from the base of a 5m scrum.

To their credit Lewes also scored another fine try at the death to underline their efforts.

In truth, if Michael had been aiming his conversions at the post on our pitch rather than the adjacent pitch this would have been a 40 pointer.

Lewes did well at the breakdown where again we surrendered too much possession but that was a lone “black mark” on an otherwise much improved performance. The scrums were solid, and our lineout is continuing to cause problems for the opposition and we again won this contest convincingly today. The galloping runs from Ben, Robin and Aaron B are a real boost and are very difficult to counter, though we do need to support such runs more quickly.

The backs, in all combinations, looked more relaxed today with only two dropped passes all game. Defensively the midfield looked solid and the wingers put real pace on the ball and gained ground every time they had possession.

We did not give Lewes any easy yards today and they struggled to breakdown our defense as a result

Some good things again today, and progress, but more work at the breakdown required.

Match reporter – Jeff Ashman