Late Penalty Secures Another Win

Down to 18 players from a squad of 30 and playing a big powerful London Scottish U18's side, it was great to see Horsham play an up tempo game from the whistle and be camped in the hosts 22 for long periods of the first half

We retained possession well, were aggressive at the breakdown and supported our ball carriers.

But our first score proved that when you are close to the opponents try line, its great to have an option to use the strength and physicality of your forwards to drive towards the try line.

And that is exactly what we did with Ben Murphy bursting over the line from close range to secure 5 points with Dale converting.

Everybody stepped up a gear and put in a strong performance regardless of position, which was extremely pleasing for the coaching staff.

There are no weak links in the squad and all the players want to be involved and are playing exceptional rugby to state their case for selection.

Sladie, Tyrick and Ricky had stand out games but as a squad everybody played their part.

Although we had the majority of the possession in the first half we gave away a couple of soft trys either side of half time.

Concentration levels dropped, we lost a bit of our shape, gaps appeared in our defensive line and we slipped off tackles.

Suddenly our hosts had 14 points on the board, but we did not panic and re-grouped to take control of the game.

Max Patterson scored a great try in the corner following some lovely hands along the back line, however the difficult conversion was missed by Matt Allen making the score 14-12 with 15 minutes remaining.

We put a lot of pressure on our hosts and with London Scottish defending their try line they were penalised at the breakdown with 3 minutes to go.

Horsham were awarded a penalty which Dale converted to clinch a win by a single point at 14-15.

It was a nice bit of game management by the captain Olly Lewis and a very satisfactory result - everybody is keen for the winning streak to continue!