With their social lives taking over in the build up to Christmas, it was a lackluster start by Horsham in the Third Round of the National Colts Plate against a well drilled Havant side.

The first half was a series of missed tackles, knock on's and loose passes which resulted in Havant scoring an early try and retaining possession and territory for long periods.

At half time Horsham were 17 - 0 down and had to improve dramatically in the second half if they were going to make a game of it.

Unfortunately we conceded a penalty within the first ten minutes and with 25 minutes to play were losing 20-0.

Instead of heads dropping Horsham started to show some character and stepped up their game, competing in all areas, which resulted in Alfie Burchill scoring an unconverted try in the corner.

Alfie bagged another 5 points soon after with a wonderful kick and chase to the line making the score 20-10 with 13 minutes left on the clock.

The boys were back in the game and were playing with more structure, making less mistakes and started to put Havant under pressure.

The Horsham forwards took advantage of a tiring Havant pack driving the hosts back 20 metres with a rolling maul on two occasions.

Horsham now had the upper hand and Max Patterson pounced on a loose ball to kick ahead and sprint to the line from 30 metres to score under the posts, converting his own try.

The score was now 20-17 with 3 minutes left to play - Game on!

It was a pulsating final few minutes with Horsham driving into the Havant half creating phases of play & feeding the ball along the back line to Rasmus Madum, whose powerful run created an overlap.
Ras sprinted past two Havant defenders drawing the last man while passing to Matt Allen in the tackle.
As a gap opened up Matt burst over the line past the last defender to score the winning try with the final play of the game.

Dale Connellan added an extra two points with a conversion from a difficult angle which crept over the crossbar.

There were excited scenes at the final whistle with the bench running on the pitch to celebrate with the rest of the players.

At 20 points down the boys heads could have dropped and possibly lost by a bigger margin, but they showed great strength of character to dig deep, work hard as a squad, and get the result they needed.

The pleasing factor was the nature of the win as we move into the next round.

Coaches Comment - Tony Lewis
While there were some negatives today there were positives as well.The whole 21 contributed and you kept on going.We showed how good our catch and drive can be and we kept believing.
The fact that we were 20-0 down with 25 minutes to go and win 24-20 with a great team try from the last play says a lot about our character and will to win.
See you all on thursday lads.
Green Army!

Coaches Comment - Tony Jones
OMG what a game from the Colts today 20-0 down away at half time against a very good and strong Havant Academy side who won this cup two years ago. Woke up in the second half after home truths from the coaching staff and some true passion and will to win with the last play of the game score a converted try to go through to the next round 20-24